Sunday morning arrived earlier than normal with a 10am meet to leave for our match against Cardiff University Ladies. With breakfast at the hostel a strange array of white-faced pyjama-clothed ill-looking people turned up at 9.30am for toast and tea. Impressively even those who couldn't find their way home last night turned up in time too - why?! With an Irish stalker amongst us we packed our bags and began to think about the logistics of getting our bodies to run.
With the taxis arriving the ladies were issued with a shower cap each - SHOWER TIME! With instructions that whenever the shower captain (Fagan) had her cap on, everyone else must also put their shower cap on. With much moaning in the cabs about the stupidity of playing a match at 11am on a Sunday we arrived at the university. The funniest view EVER greeted my cab when we walked around the corner to the student union. There in front were a motley crew of Beccs Ladies with bags and coats and rugby kit and....shower caps. You had to be there. There followed a hysterical conversation in which Trolley informed a student she had come to clean the pitch. A couple of ladies nearly wet themselves and it was with relief we were shown to the changing rooms.
We were soon changed and ready to go only to find it was quite a hike to get to the pitches with a long walk along the river and across a wobbly bridge of doom. Beccs began their warm-up with a spectacular show of good hands and not one dropped ball! Perhaps 2-days drinking is a good warm-up for a match? It was only a while later that it became clear that One Pint was missing(!) and so a Happy and Fagan search party was sent out. Luckily they found her making her way slowly along the river and it became clear that One Pint had been in the loo when everyone else left and so got left behind. Bless. After realising she didn't know where the pitch was she returned to the changing room for a nap (a nap?!! FINE!) before deciding it would be an even worse fine if she was found asleep in the changing rooms AFTER the match had been played.
The match began - with Beccs wearing their shower caps! What can be said about the match? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was actually really enjoyable and several ladies were actually playing extremely well! Sniff was on fire and managed a fantastic run down the field only to be denied because her support were too busy cheering her on. The game plan hatched in the cab to kick every ball fell through and Gump kept her promise of dropping every ball that came her way on the wing.
Cardiff were first to score and it was with quiet satisfaction that Beccs went into half-time only 5-0 down. With Beccs totally dominant in the scrum the Cardiff girls opted to go uncontested but this didn't stop Beccs who finally got a ball out to Wendy to score in the corner to grab the draw. Special mentions go to Chitty who came out of retirement to play her first match for a long time and Sicknote who finally made it onto the pitch after the season off due to her broken wrist.
Thanks to the Cardiff girls for being great sports and giving us a game. In retrospect two days drinking wasn't the best preperation for the match! We had a traditional Cardiff streaker at the end and Beccs sang the Cardiff girls down the tunnel to "I am the one and only" before having some photos taken.
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