Jubilant Workington Reds Ladies manager Billy Redden celebrated his side's hard-fought victory over Carlisle United Ladies that clinched the Cumberland FA Cup and declared: "I knew we could beat them!".

After overcoming last year’s finalists Penrith Ladies at the semi-final stage, Reds Ladies succeeded in defeating reigning champions Carlisle United Ladies 1-0.

Haley Bracken's first-half strike was enough to seal the trophy and Redden, proud of his players' achievement, said: “It was a brilliant game, very tough, which we expected having played against them in the league.

“They are a very good side, very organised, with good attacking players so we knew what to expect from them.

“We attacked them well on the break, caused them problems and we were resolute in defence.”

Many had Workington down as underdogs ahead of the final, but Redden was always confident his side would get their hands on the trophy: 

“I didn't think that we were underdogs going into the game but everyone else seemed to think that we were!" he said.

“We've had a really good second half of the season and I knew that if we played to our potential we could beat them.

“From taking over at the start of this season my aims were to better our points tally in the league and to reach a county cup final, we've achieved both, which is great for the club.”

Assistant manager, Rebecca Scott, was delighted with the performance, saying:  “This cup victory is the icing on the cake, following our good league campaign.

“It was a really tough, hard-fought game, we managed to get ourselves in front early on and then had to dig deep and see the game out.”

The Reds kept Carlisle at bay through some resolute defending by the back four and keeper Laura Miller, who pulled off a number of saves to deny United.

Workington finished ninth in the North West Regional Division One North with 16 points, a vast improvement on last year's points tally.

Carlisle ended the season in seventh position, and had beaten Workington twice already this season in the league, 5-1 on the opening day and 3-0 on the final day of the season.

“Now we want to keep progressing, try and bring in a few more players to develop the squad so we can improve on this season,” said Scott.

“We've done really well in the league this season, bettering our tally of points from last year, which is terrific and shows that we've made progress.”