Firstly it was so pleasing to have over 30 girls come forward and say they wanted to be a part of this team. It shows how much the Lionesses winning the Euros last summer has inspired young girls to play football. In the end, I took 14 girls to play with two teams of 7.

Unfortunately, the game didn't get off to the best start, the nerves got the better of us, and we found ourselves 4-0 down quite early on. After ten minutes, we changed the 7 that were playing and soon began to find our feet within the game by preventing the opposition from scoring too many more. We identified that we needed to close down their number 9 (an excellent footballer and scorer of most of their goals). Once we did this, we were able to get a foothold within the game. We did come in at half-time 5-0 down, after another wonderful bit of play from the Merton attack. After a good chat at half-time, we came out in the second half with renewed energy and started creating more goal-scoring opportunities. Whilst we were attacking well, we couldn't find the back of the net and ended up being 6-0 down. This kicked us into gear, and soon Rosie found herself through on goal and coolly slotted home to score our first goal as a team! The girls reacted amazingly to this, and Rosie had another chance to make it 6-2 and grab her second of the game. In the closing moment, Taiyah scored a goal to make it 6-3, which was the final score.

I am beyond proud of the girls as we didn't ever give up, kept cheering each other on and worked extremely hard until the final whistle. We only had 1 practice together and 2 team meetings, so all things considered, we did very well. I look forward to the next game and hope to see the girls give it another good go!