Alana’s Euro Trip

Alana is the keeper for the Women’s Pennant A team in 2009. She was selected and played for the Australian Schoolgirls Team which toured Europe and Singapore.

Written by Alana Butler

I began my trip by flying out of Melbourne on the 6th June and meeting the team in Singapore. It was on our first official day of tour that we played the Singapore U18 Women. Grace the other goalkeeper and myself were not given much of a go in this game as our team dominated on the field.

We finished winning 12 nil. It was a great start and gave us all a good confidence boost. We finished the day off with some shopping and then boarded our 13 hour flight to London.

After arriving in London on Monday the 8th, we had to beat jetlag by making a full day of sightseeing. One of the main highlights of the day was the London Eye, which gave us an amazing view of London City. We spent the two days traveling and packing in as much sightseeing as possible.

We stopped in Oxford, which was an awesome experience to see all the students walking around in their official robes and then continued our journey arriving in Nottingham, where we played our second game of the tour against Lincoln College which again we won 7 nil. Our third match was much tougher and we fought hard for the 4-3 win against Sutton Coalfield. Our fourth game was against British Colleges and although we won 5 nil it was personally my best game.

Our fifth game was the highlight of the tour, where we played the English U18 team as the follow up match to an international match between the Spanish and English women. Our team worked extremely well as an attacking and defensive unit. We played a tough match, always only just on top of our opposition we managed to win 5-3 with a goal in the last thirty seconds of the match. It was an amazing feeling as we stood facing our flag singing the national anthem, our spirits high after our superb win. Our last two matches were won well with 4 nil against the Wales U18 team and 6 nil against Bristol University.

The tour was an incredible experience combining hockey and lots of sightseeing and touring, one of the best places I was fortunate to visit was the city of Bath, it lived up to its history. With some of the most remarkable architectural buildings I have ever seen. All in all it was a brilliant experience and although it only lasted 16 days, seemed like much longer as each day was so crammed with excitement.

Pictures of the trip from Alana.