A lovely trip to the Cotswolds 

Big day out again for the L2s. Bourne deeping’s match was located in Stamford. Think the Cotswold-esque stone in Stamford was the highlight of the day - even the new builds looked adorable??

Other highlight was my donation of 1.5 kg of haribos from a surprise bag I bought in an outlet Haribo shop in Essex, just so the girls remember me when I’m gone in half times to come. LOM campaign begun here, my last game makes me lemon worthy and *foreshadowing* I didn’t score at all :/ (and this report isn’t my funniest work, to which Jenny replied ‘that’s ok not our finest hockey either’).

After a training level length warm up and Freya giving us the briefing, we felt ready to go smash this and some goals. Bottom of the league what could possibly go wrong!

Bourne may be deep in the league table order, but they came out fighting. It’s always hard with these types of games as I think we all would say we start playing their game. That didn’t stop us getting up the pitch and creating some great chances to score! We thought we would settle but alas, goals were not getting converted leaving us nil nil at half time. Don’t worry though, as I had tonnes of haribos for distribution. 

Think Bourne deeping also had some haribos as they came out strong in the second half, finding their forwards to pass to to which Lu, the defence and midfield put in a massive shift keeping out that ball from our goal. So much so Freya and Jenny went absolutely flying one after each other for commitment to hitting out the D. My LOM journey apparently was cemented here for having an absolute giggle (apparently ‘cackling like a witch’) with the umpire about such a situation, he made a mildly funny joke also ‘you’d think there was a sniper in Stamford’. 

We also started really overloading our attacking D and wanting a goal SO BAD coco gave us a cracking shot and Jas helped it in, well done queens! Woohoo, we were 1:0 up. Thought we were over? Nope, still had like 20 minutes of sweating (and not just cos it was the first mild game in a while). Both sides were fighting to the bitter end, where somehow a goal came from Bourne deeping that I don’t remember nor want to. We really really wanted to get that extra goal to get the 3 points but today just wasn’t our day (oh nauhhhhh Cleo). Trying to look positive, we at least got the 1 point with a draw and a big day out to a mini Cotswolds. Bonus points also were scored getting a match teas in Peterborough services, what fantastic selection they have. I got a quesadilla which was also apparently a part of my LOM reasons. My quesadilla was great though. The girls also made the most adorable cake which I think we can all take inspo from the writing decoration ‘Safe travels Mo’ xx 

POM went to Coco for being whizzy and fizzy in the midfield as per usual. I can’t remember other POM nominations apart from my self (sorry it’s all about me). LOM was quelle surprise Mo, but Jenny and Freya really deserved it; as Jenny has pointed out ‘I love that laughing at us falling over gets you more LoM votes than actually falling over’.

Final parting wisdom from myself, today really was like that sometimes, and like when you fail in a lab experiment, you just don’t know the full system yet and you learn more because of it, which is what the girls will do and topple the rest of the few games left this season. Not for me though I’m off to Melbs (and nauhhh not the Royston town the OTHER ONE).