Katy Hosford hopes stadium win can inspire young Swans in record crowd

Swansea City captain Katy Hosford hopes her side’s 2-1 victory over Wrexham in front of a record Swansea.com Stadium crowd for a women’s fixture will have inspired the next generation of young footballers.

Hosford grabbed the winner for the hosts when she took advantage of a defensive lapse to steer the ball beyond Wrexham keeper Delyth Morgan.

Swansea had trailed to Carra Jones’ early strike at the interval, despite dominating the contest.

However, they made that dominance count in the second half, Ellie Lake scoring with a low left-footed strike from distance before Hosford’s strike.

There were 3,859 on hand to watch an entertaining Genero Adran Premier encounter, a figure that nearly trebled the previous best for a women’s home game.

It is also the highest attendance in the Welsh top-flight this term, with Hosford and her teammates thanking the fans for their support by posing for pictures and signing autographs after full-time.

And the forward hopes a night to savour means more young Swans have gone away dreaming of following in the footsteps of their heroes.

“It’s amazing and I think it just shows the work the club are putting in behind the scenes,” Hosford said of the attendance.

“We are so grateful to have the fans here and to nearly treble the biggest crowd we have had before, hopefully we can have even more fans here next time.

“I hope nights like this can have a positive impact for all the young fans who were watching. When I was a young girl, I would have loved to have had players to look up to.

“It is so nice to see them in the crowd wearing shirts with our names on, I don’t think that will ever feel anything less than amazing to me.

“It was great to see so many of them out there, staying behind at the end to have pictures and autographs. It was brilliant.”

Hosford’s goal was her third in three appearances at the stadium, having also netted against Cardiff Met and Cardiff City last season.

And the skipper was proud of how her side responded to the setback of conceding early.

“I am over the moon and so happy. To play at this stadium and to score three goals in three games feels great,” she added.

“To concede early was frustrating but we just showed the resilience we have got as a team to fight back really hard in the second half and we got what we deserved.

“It was key to get that goal through Ellie, and we had a couple of chances on the back of that and we knew there was time in the game for us to go and get a winner, and fortunately we did."