So we’ve done the UFWC Wooden Spoon, and the Women’s UFWC. Now, in the last of our seasonal features on UFWC spin-offs, we take a look at the Women’s UFWC Wooden Spoon!

The women’s wooden spoon suffers from much the same problem as the men’s. The weak teams do not have the time or money to travel great distances, and thus it is unlikely to stray very far geographically. In the women’s case, it has never even left Europe. Undoubtedly, there are much weaker teams in other corners of the globe, but they are unlikely to have to contest the spoon – not for a long time, anyway.

After losing the first ever official women’s international to France, it was Holland who were the first women’s wooden spooners. Switzerland, France and Switzerland again followed, before the Swiss beat Austria in 1978. Having taken the spoon, Austria took 12 years to play a match, so had only themselves to blame for being wooden spooners for so long. After six unsuccessful attempts, they finally offloaded it in 1993.

Over the ensuing years, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Switzerland, Greece (again) and Turkey took the spoon. When it found its way to Bosnia in 1999, it looked set to stay for a long time. They had taken the spoon by losing 6-2 to Turkey; they then lost 13-0 to Hungary in their next game. After some more very heavy defeats, they finally beat Turkey in 2002. The Turks then went on a four and a half year inactive spell of their own, before beating Northern Ireland in 2006.

The Ulsterwomen kept the spoon for only two days before beating Georgia. The Georgians then beat Macedonia in 2009. Since then, Macedonia have tried to offload the spoon ten times, but with a notable lack of success; in those ten games, they have scored three goals, and conceded 76. So Macedonia are the worst women’s team in the world! It will take a very bad team indeed to dispossess them of the spoon!

You can follow the progress of the women’s UFWC wooden spoon over at the UFWC Forum.

Read more UFWC spin-off features.

Features macedonia

NETHERLANDS 4-0 MACEDONIA, Amsterdam, 1 April 2009
Kuyt 16, 41, Huntelaar 25, Van der Vaart 88

The Netherlands were convincing winners in tonight’s UFWC\WCQ match, and retained the UFWC title.

Wesley Sneijder replaced the injured Robin van Persie from the Dutch side that defeated Scotland on Saturday, and Sneijder combined with Arjen Robben to set up the first goal, with Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt finishing from close range after 15 minutes.

Macedonia had been forced to replace injured goalkeeper Petar Milosevski with Tome Pacovski, and Pacovski made good saves from Robben and Joris Mathijsen, but he was beaten by Klaas Jan Huntelaar in the 25th minute as the Netherlands doubled their lead.

And it was 3-0 before the break, with Sneijder sending Kuyt free to claim his second goal of the game, and set up a comfortable second half for the Dutch.

Pacovski again kept the score down after half time, saving twice from substitute Ryan Babel, and then from Mark van Bommel.

Macedonia were struggling to create chances, with a Goran Pandev free kick and a Ilco Naumoski header failing to trouble Dutch keeper Maarten Stekelenburg.

The Netherlands capped a fine performance two minutes from time, with captain Giovanni van Bronckhorst crossing to substitute Rafael van der Vaart, who fired a low shot past Pacovski to make the final score 4-0.

The Netherlands will now take the title into their next World Cup Qualifier, against Iceland in Reykjavik on 6 June. The last match between the two sides was in October, ending 2-0 to the Netherlands.

Iceland have failed to win any of their previous five UFWC title matches, two of which were World Cup Qualifiers against the Netherlands, both in 1973, ending 5-0 and 8-1 to the Dutch.

If the Netherlands can retain the title against Iceland, they will then play Norway in Rotterdam four days later, and then England in Amsterdam in August.

Netherlands fans can get an exclusive Netherlands UFWC T-shirt at the UFWC T-Shirt Store.

Match Reports macedonia, Netherlands