Lincoln Ladies

1 March 2011

Sue's Blog

Sue Smith gives her verdict on Lincoln Ladies trip to Northern Ireland.

A lot has happened since I last spoke with you, the main event being a trip to Belfast with the girls!! It all started on Thursday evening, we trained and finalised some details before setting off to Northern Ireland at the crack of dawn (4am) on the Friday morning. As you can imagine there wasn’t much conversation happening I think most of us were still asleep with our eyes open (or maybe that was just me) Kay Hawke our goalkeeper just had her iPod on and a scowl to say don’t talk to me at least for another hour!! 

We arrived at our hotel by 10 and Rod decided to let us sleep for a couple of hours before going out training in the afternoon. The mini bus that we had ordered was too small to fit us all in so we split the journey to the training ground into two, defenders and attackers. The defenders went first, after waiting for over an hour for the mini bus to return we decided to ring Rod; he blamed the traffic for being late however I am not too sure I think he may have got a little lost even with the sat nav!! Boys and directions eh!!? When we eventually got to the ground the defenders had been training for an hour and a half and then had to train again for another hour and a half with us (I love being a forward). 

Friday evening was a really fun night and we all got to know each other a little bit better. All the girls made an effort with their outfits I don’t think they wanted to be voted worst dressed. I have to say Megan’s coat won best item of clothing!! After we had all finished our meal, the restaurant then turned into Lincoln ladies got talent. Each player began to disclose their party tricks, my favourites had to be bonnie’s tap dancing, sophie Barkers worm ( apart from her banging her chin on the floor) But The highlight of the evening was Steve our goalkeeper coach absolutely killing the U2 song with or without you. I need to improve my party tricks no one really seemed impressed by my ear wiggling!! 

Saturday was very eventful, we managed to go shopping in the morning and Jess introduced me to gingerbread lattes, which was a bad move as I think I now have an addiction! Then we trained in the afternoon, defenders and attackers did the same amount this time. Saturday night myself Jess and Sophie Bradley got asked to go to go to the Northern Ireland women’s football presentation evening and present some awards. Our dress code was smart so we all made the effort with our dresses and heels. While shopping in the afternoon we decided we were going to wear fake eyelashes (something I had never experienced before) but I thought it would be fun to try. That evening I was stitched up on many occasions, the first being I was the only one who wore the fake eyelashes. When we arrived I was sitting at a table on my own and they proceeded to tell me I was doing a talk, which I forcefully told them I hadn’t prepared anything so would prefer not to. They obviously couldn’t understand my scouse accent as when I had to go up on stage they introduced me their guest speaker. I managed to talk for a few minutes on what a lovely event it was and how nice the food was; hopefully they thought I was Nadine from girls aloud with my eye lashes!!! The other girls went into the town centre to watch the Christmas lights get switched on and have a look at the Christmas market, whilst we were stuffing our faces!! 

Most importantly the game against Northern Ireland this was on Sunday before we went home. It was a great opportunity for Rod and Glen to have a look at their players, different formations and to see if we had been listening to all the information they have given us during training. Hopefully they were quite happy with what they saw we won the game 6-0 and at times played some very good football. We obviously have a lot to work on but it was a good positive start that I think we all wanted. This was a really beneficial trip we all got to know each other much better as people and not just footballers and the team spirit is very good so hopefully this can keep improving with every week.

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