5-0 Community Day win<\/a> last weekend.<\/p>\nPoole, Thompson and Keziah Banduka lined up as the defensive trio, with King providing the central-defensive-midfield protection. Parker and Szekeres were the midfield dynamos, supported on the flanks by Whitburn and Keren Banduka, with Broke-Smith and Johnson ruthless in attack.<\/p>\n
And it didn\u2019t take long for the boldness and pressure to pay off again. Six minutes in, Keren Banduka charged down the goalkeeper\u2019s clearance, her reward seeing the ball ricochet off her and into the net for the opening goal. 1-0.<\/p>\n
Reading nearly made it two from their first corner, Thompson\u2019s header rebounding off the crossbar, with Parker\u2019s follow-up header saved by goalkeeper Kim Marshall.<\/p>\n
It was another half hour before the Royals doubled their lead. In between, Reading peppered the Fleet Town goal and, although there were some sublime and deft long-range efforts, these were largely high and wide.<\/p>\n
Whitburn was a constant outlet and threat down the Reading right, with Johnson unlucky when she connected with another great delivery from the winger, her side-foot finish going just wide of the goal.<\/p>\n
The pressure continued and Johnson was alert to react and finish from close range to double Reading\u2019s lead after Szekeres\u2019 shot was only parried by the goalkeeper. 2-0.<\/p>\n
With the interval rapidly approaching, there was still time for Johnson to grab her second of the match and make any plans of a half-time team talk about chances missed that little bit easier. Keziah Banduka threaded the ball through to Johnson on the edge of the penalty area, to turn and fire a fierce shot past the surprised goalkeeper. 3-0.<\/p>\n
The second half resumed where it had left off, with Johnson getting her third of the afternoon just two minutes after the restart. With a Fleet Town player receiving treatment on the touchline, Reading showed no mercy, Broke-Smith\u2019s pass slicing through the Town defence for Johnson to run onto and comfortably finish for her second hat-trick in as many weeks. 4-0.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, Parker made it five, the Reading captain quick to read the cross from Whitburn to stab home from close range. 5-0.<\/p>\n
Reading\u2019s first substitution came when King went down injured and was forced to leave the play, with Bolitho the first of the four changes. Hayes, Manners and Cowell were all not far behind and the renewed strike force quickly went to town, wrapping up the match in convincing style.<\/p>\n
Cowell\u2019s first attempt at goal acted as a \u2018sighter\u2019, rebounding off the angle of the post and crossbar. From Bolitho\u2019s pass, Cowell made no mistake with her second attempt, her shot from outside of the penalty area neatly tucked into the corner of the goal. 6-0.<\/p>\n
After three quick corners in succession without success, Cowell made it fourth time lucky to stab home a near-post shot after Hayes\u2019 set-piece had caused chaos and a goalmouth scramble. 7-0.<\/p>\n
Cowell rounded off a substitution masterclass with a hat-trick, and 14th goal of the season, after Manners had set up an easy tap-in for Reading\u2019s top goalscorer (with Johnson not far behind on 12 goals). 8-0.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a result which has for now pushed Reading into fourth place – with AFC Portchester (who won the League Cup 3-1 on penalties against Wycombe Wanderers) just two points behind. However, they have two games in hand and are still to face Reading for a second time in the league.<\/p>\n
Reading are now realistically guaranteed a place in the top five and, mathematically, able to finish anywhere from second to fifth.<\/p>\n
It perfectly sets up an exciting finish to the season and a 2026\/27 to really look forward to. If you\u2019ve been unable to get along to the Sunday matches, but would still like to be a part of the Women\u2019s team revival, there\u2019s a couple of midweek fixtures over the next two weeks (details below), and it would be great if you could make it.<\/p>\n
Reading vs Oxford City: Arbour Park, Thursday April 30, 19:45 kick-offReading vs AFC Portchester: Arbour Park, Wednesday May 6, 19:45 kick-offFleet Town vs Reading: the Royals\u2019 training centre on the outdoor 3G pitch (behind the Dome), Sunday May 10, 14:00 kick-offSouthampton Women 5-0 Badshot Lea Wycombe Wanderers: 45 points from 20 matchesWinchester City Flyers: 40 points from 18 matchesSouthampton Women: 36 points from 19 matchesReading: 33 points from 17 matchesAFC Porchester: 31 points from 15 matchesBeaconsfield Town: 29 points from 19 matchesOxford City: 22 points from 16 matchesFleet Town: 19 points from 17 matchesSholing: 12 points from 17 matches Woodley United: 7 points from 17 matchesBadshot Lea: 4 points from 19 matches <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hat-tricks from Tia Johnson and Nat Cowell helped Reading Women romp home 8-0 winners over Fleet Town at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129,25682],"class_list":["post-177406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-fc-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hat-trick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/721a8415-c07b-43c1-adf6-8e392df9337a.jpeg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n