Team brunch at stir was more favoured than the match itself on Saturday #sponsorusplease. They’ve liked our Instagram now, are we a step closer to sponsorship? The team convened at Stir, ostensibly to strategize and prepare for the game. In reality? It was more like a delightful mothers' meeting. Mo and Erin had mighty croissants whilst the rest of the team went for a hot number. The team spoke of Mo’s and Erin’s consumption of croissants meaning more goals, need I quote “What I suggest to get more goals is… more croissants.” We can confirm Jan, this works. Croissants mean goals in the L3’s. We thrive on pre-match brunch, no electrolytes or bananas here. The team eager to have a full squad of 16 turned up to St Mary’s to find we had rapidly declined to 13 (maybe we say 11.5 with 2 unwell members). Illness had struck the team but we were ready to fight for this win. The game started with the 3’s dominating and having a near miss on goal. It quickly turned into a free-flowing game with the team playing some hockey Coach Ed would be proud of. About halfway through the first half we won our second short and Hayley hit a beauty into the bottom right corner *chefs kiss*. 1-0 to us. Here we go. With our fans on the sidelines, Rachel, Steph and Peter we decided to fall apart for 10 minutes after the goal and stress them out. We had to make sure they were concentrating on us of course. Anyway, we scored a second towards the end of the first half with some lovely jubbly passing and Louisa stepping in to pick up the ball after a save on the P spot to seal the goal. 2-0 half time - who are we?!

Percy Pigs (already consumed by coach Ed) and Jelly Babies later we were strictly told to hold possession and that we had time on the ball therefore, not to mess this up. #famouslastwords? Not this time. Hah Second half underway, everyone stayed wonderful. Mo and Hayley continuing to run marathons on the pitch to pick up the forward balls. Louisa, Libby, Erin and Indi holding the middle, whilst Harry and Jess helped break down any play that made it through. Louisa, Luisa, Annabel and Kristina mopping absolutely everything at the back AND distributing beautifully through the switch. One had to stand and stare in awe at one point. Finally, Selene. These sorts of games don’t happen often for Selene so inbetween star jumping at the back to keep warm she boot back the odd ball that made it to her and some short corner beauties away. All in a days work Both teams started to feel the effects of low numbers in the second half, with Spalding stopping and breaking down a lot of play and having counterattacks,. But don’t fret, the 3’s started to thrive. Hayley was 1v1 with the keeper and performed her signature dummy to send the keeper one way and the ball the other, straight into the goal. 3-0 Following on, a short corner was awarded and after a save from the keeper, yours truly flung it in the goal with help from Libby to make sure it went in (can confirm it’s my goal after seeing the video evidence #sorrylibby) 4-0 ANOTHER short corner was then awarded and a slip to Mo meant a goal from a sweep - who what when where WHAT is going on? 5-0 Hayley had decided she had enough of scoring at this point and decided to avoid a hatrick - tough life that. Spalding proceeded to score in the last 5 minutes after a very strong finish but at this point we were comfortable and had cemented the win. The team were ecstatic. 5-1 Special mention to the Spalding father who shared their choccies with us. The awards…. POM votes were distributed across players however the overall winner was Louisa P. She was here there and everywhere, scored a goal and just never looked tired. Can I be like you please? The team were fantastic and the goals came from great teamwork, utilising our defence to give our forwards even more space and time to make decisions. And yours truly? I received Lemon. First, I accidentally tripped a Spalding player. Then, with five minutes left, while man-marking in the D, I went for a loose ball, the Spalding player tripped, and I executed a… well, I’d call it a graceful summersault. One would compared one’s self to a gymnast. Others have described it as a rugby tackle. As I attempted to rise, the Spalding player, whom I was now quite well acquainted with, informed me that we were even. Turns out, she was the same player I’d tripped earlier. I accepted my Lemon award with grace with 7 votes. Are you all just jealous of my skills?