A special milestone will be marked when West Ham United Ladies return to league action against Barnet on Sunday.
Lindsey Morgan will be making her 100th appearance for the club with manager Tony Marshall offering plenty of praise for the midfielder's commitment. "When I took over in the summer," he said. "There was a serious rebuilding job to be done with this team. With my assistant Alex Bonner we have brought in a lot of new players to the club all of them relatively young and it is starting to gel for us.
"There were a hardcore of players from last season who stayed with me, gave me us their support and have also helped and encouraged the younger players, Lindsey is one of those players. Hopefully Lindsey will in a few years time be making her two hundredth appearance for us, she has been a great servant to the club so far."
Because of postponements and FA Cup games, the match at Harlow Town FC, which kicks off at 2pm, is the first league outing since the 12-0 win against Reading Royals on 18 November. Marshall added: "Fulham are at the top of the table and have opened up a nine-point gap over second placed Barnet who have a game in hand. So Barnet will be coming to us in a must-win situation to go into the Christmas break."
With the Hammers sitting comfortably in mid table and going well in the FA Cup, Marshall was at pains to stress the players should not switch off in the league. "When I took the job on I always said that this would be a case of 'work in progress' and nothing has changed. It does look like Fulham are going to take a lot of catching and that they are very strong favourites to go up to the Premier Division.
"Looking at next season, if we are going to mount a serious challenge for promotion then I expect teams like Barnet and Portsmouth to be the clubs that we have to beat, so lets start giving them a run for their money now. Also as this is the last game before the Christmas break I want to end 2007 on a high note."