eiffel_71 | (no subject)

Up at sparrow's fart to be at Westleigh Park for a 7.30 am meet-up, to drive to the Launton ladies' five-a-side tournament. I travelled up in Abi's car with Lisa Cooper and Lizzie.

We again had two teams entered, but this time the A's were just a tiny bit stronger than the B's (on paper). Hawks had pulled off a massive coup by getting Charlie Wilson, once Portsmouth Ladies' star striker but recently out of favour there, on board. She made her Hawks debut in the B's, as did a new young goalkeeper named Prue.

The girls were very much in high spirits. In the A's' first game, Chantelle took a bad whack in the eye; the poor lass had to come off, couldn't open her eye for a while and ended up having it washed out with a water bottle. She was immediately dubbed 'One-eyed Sally' by the others, then during the B's' next match, in which New Chantelle was playing, someone remarked on the confusion that having two Chantelles was going to cause so many of the girls decided our original Chantelle should be renamed Sally! I gave her the odd shout of 'C'mon Sally' during matches. Prue also got a new nickname - Ella - after Billie asked what her real name was, Jo replied "Prudence" and added "What else could it be? Sharon?" ,and Rita later speculated that it might have been Prunella, so the girls thought briefly of calling Prue Prunella before reducing it to Ella. Later it emerged that New Chantelle already has a nickname, Telé (as in Pelé).

Jo is about to join the police force - she begins her training tomorrow - so she got plenty of ribbing about that, including the girls dreaming up scenarios involving them that Jo might get called to. Jo flirted with Erin and said she'd invite her to meet her parents (both really are lesbians but this flirtation was just joking); when Erin asked for a drink of water Jo said "You can have anything you want from me, Erin, what's mine is yours" and handed her her own water bottle. I said to Sabrina "Is this the next Hawks Ladies romance?" and Sabrina grinned "It's on the cards." Jo and Sabrina called everybody 'Gay Dude' all afternoon.

The B's qualified easily from their group, but celebrations were muted as in a late group game Charlie broke her ankle. Initially an ambulance was called, but with care and the application of an ice pack by Lisa, and the attentions of Kevin the on-site first aid man, Charlie was able to agree to wait until we got back to Portsmouth to be taken to hospital.

The A's lost one match to a team from a higher league, Coventry Copsewood, and could only draw with Reading Ladies, so had to rely on Launton A failing to beat MK Wanderers A by three clear goals. A 2-0 win for Launton would have seen us facing them in a penalty shoot-out for the quarter-final place. When Launton went one up our A girls tensed up, as they (especially keeper Erin) certainly didn't fancy a shoot-out, but it stayed 1-0 and so our A's joined the B's in the quarter-finals...where they met each other.

Trevor and the coaching staff weren't over happy about that, and Trev went over to the tournament organisers to ask if the draw could be changed, but no - the winners of Group 2 had to play the runners-up of Group 1, and that was that. One problem was that both teams were wearing identical kit and we hadn't brought a change strip. Jo immediately said 'We'll play in skins', but her A team-mates weren't keen...

Finally Rob managed to borrow some green bibs from the organisers. The A players were quick to point out that B stands for Bibs and therefore it should be the B players who wore them. And so our girls lined up for what turned out to be a pretty good game of football. Simon had been afraid they might crock each other - apparently they go in pretty hard in training games - but the match passed without any additions to the injury count. Rob was taking charge of the B's for the day and Lisa the A's, so when Chantelle/Telé gave the B's the lead, cueing a big grin and cheer from Rob, Simon said "I don't want any home-time rows over this." "No, there won't be," Lisa smiled, and I quipped "If it stays this way Lisa's filing for divorce first thing in the morning." Chantelle/Telé scored again; Chantelle/Sally pulled one back for the A's in the dying seconds with a magnificent solo run and volleyed goal, but bragging rights belonged to Rob and his B's. "You're getting none for six months," Lisa said to Rob as they shook hands.

Of course, all our A girls cheered on the B's in their semi with Wellingborough Diamonds. All the B girls played out of their skins in a hard-fought 0-0 draw. Six minutes' extra time didn't produce a goal and so it was a penalty shoot-out. "We hate penalties," Simon groaned. New Chantelle, Abi and Lizzie all scored from the spot, but so did all Wellingborough's three kickers. Sudden death. Laura shot wide, but the Wellingborough player shot over the bar. Billie stepped up to take our next kick but the referee intervened. Billie had been substituted and it had to be the five players on the pitch at the end who took the kicks. So it was Prue/Ella's turn. Prue blasted her penalty into the corner of the net, then saved the Wellingborough goalkeeper's kick to win the match. All of us on the sideline went mental, we did a chant of "Ella, Ella" then I streamed onto the pitch with the others chanting "We are the Hawks" - one or two of the A girls joined in. Of course everybody mobbed Prue! As I remarked to Jo "Only her first day playing for us and already she's a legend." Laura said to Erin, hugging her, "I'm sorry you can't be my favourite keeper any more, but Ella saved my bacon."

We were just delighted to have reached the final. None of the non-players in our party seemed to think we had much of a chance against Glasgow Ladies, but our B girls had other ideas. They soon raced into a 2-0 lead through Telé and Abi. After half-time Prue rushed out of her area, giving away a penalty which Glasgow converted, but not long after that Abi scored again and made the Cup safe. At the final whistle Jenna D and Laura led the singing of "Championi, championi, ole ole ole." We made our way across to the clubhouse to await the trophy presentation. "All the five-a-sides we've entered, it's about time we won one," was Simon's view.

After thanking all the volunteers and match officials (who got good-natured barracking from the Oxford Old Girls, who were convinced they'd been robbed of their quarter-final by the ref and would have won the whole thing otherwise - I don't think so) the MC announced that unfortunately there'd been a cock-up on the trophy front and the individual winners' and runners-up's medals hadn't arrived on time, so he'd have to take down all ours and Glasgow's players' names and addresses to send the medals on. "That's the most pathetic chat-up technique I've ever heard," said an Oxford Old Girl. Fortunately, they did have the tournament cup and so our B girls did get to go up and collect that.

When the celebratory photos were over, the girls got changed, then we were divided up into cars for the journey home. With Rob and Lisa taking Charlie to hospital, some people got reshuffled and it was Billie and Becky who took me. They'd been talking all day about wanting a full meal - either a home-cooked pie, or, as it became clear we'd still be there for the later stages of the tournament so wouldn't be home till well into the evening, KFC - after getting by on burgers and hot dogs, so I expected us to pull in at a service station, but we didn't. They dropped me at Fareham bus station; it was only a few minutes before an 86 went.

By now I was Hank Marvin, so on arrival in Stoke Road I headed straight for Gosport Best for fried chicken and chips. Home to watch a Dragons' Den from last year on Dave.