There were eight teams in two pools, put together at random. There were a couple of very good women, but most of the females looked like they had never kicked a ball in their lives. We played all the other teams in our pool - 3 matches in all - and then the top two teams played each other in a final, and the two second placed teams played each other for third place.
I hit the post in our first match and that was totally my best moment of the day, I never came close again. Goals scored by women counted double, so my teammates expected me to goal-hang, which goes against my every (midfielder-) instinct.
The whole way through, I felt like I almost could play, but the reactions and instincts were missing. I ended up either a) not being in quite the right place, b) pulling back from the action in fear of cocking things up or c) being in the right place AND going for the ball and then, cocking up. It was a frustrating experience, and watching the girl who won the "Best Woman" award made me feel my age - that used to be me, and now, it's not. In retrospect, I can say I enjoyed myself, but at the time, I didn't. My mum will say I'm being too hard on myself, but really, I'm not. I didn't expect to be as good as I was 10 years ago, but I did hope it would all come back to me once I was back on the pitch again. I guess it doesn't work like that!
Here are the pictures for your amusement - you can enlarge them by clicking....
This is a picture from one of our pool games - that's me all in black on the left - as usual very far away from the action:
It looks like I may actually be going for the ball in this one:
After we scored against the red-bibbed people in the third-place play off:
Between matches with hubby and daughter:
My action shots! These are all official photos, up on the company intranet, aargh!
Look at the determination on my face - I don't do this for fun, you know, it's serious.
This is my favourite, because I look like I'm actually going to get past him:
