Sorry I haven’t written a blog in a while due to it being so long I have lots to tell you, I now have a new club Doncaster Rovers Belles. My time at Lincoln was short but I loved every minute of it and I will miss everyone associated with the club. Playing for Doncaster is a new chapter in my football career, we have already started pre season and the girls are looking good, there is only one issue I could actually be some of their mums (obviously they are very young). Over the Christmas period I did some work for the club, the most memorable being turning the Christmas lights on in Bawtry with big red Father Christmas hats on (not the coolest fashion accessory I have to say). Then a few of us went to the local children’s hospital to give out presents and just to chat to the young people who unfortunately had to be in over Christmas. This visit just put everything into perspective for me and re emphasised what the festive period is all about.

I have to admit I do love Christmas it’s a time for me to spend with my family and just relax for a few weeks. My niece who is only 4 makes this time very special she is so excited by everything, I bought her some really trendy clothes form Zara (or so I thought) and after she opened them she said, “Aunty Sue I really like the presents you bought me but I don’t like the jumper and will never wear it” so we swapped it for a pink glittery princess one instead (Aunty Sue is obviously not down with the kids) You have to admire her honesty though. We went to watch Aladdin in pantomime I am not sure who wanted to go more me or my mum, we were just glad to have a 4 year old to take. My niece loved every minute of it she sung and shouted and even had her photo taken with Aladdin at the end I didn’t have the heart to tell her Aladdin was actually Andy Mc Donald from coronation street!!

Moving on to England, I went away to La Manga in Spain last week, it was a pre season were we trained twice a day and played two games one was just between ourselves and one was against Norway which was fun mainly because we won 2-1. It was nice to catch up with all the girls and to see a bit of sunshine. I have to say joke of the camp was if you say gullible really slowly it sounds like oranges…Think about it!!!

Sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, but since the season finished most of us have been busy with different things, I have been doing some appearances in schools and clubs talking about my career as a footballer and how important it is to keep fit and healthy. I even went to our centre of excellence and spoke to the girls about nutrition and healthy eating and how important it was to have a snack after training like a cereal bar, milkshake etc, when I asked who had snacks most of the girls raised their hands which was pleasing but then said it was to put them on for the Mac Donald’s on the way home (think I have a little bit of work to do there) I have also done a little bit of TV work hopefully most of you watched the continental cup final which was Arsenal against Birmingham, Arsenal were worthy winners and without a doubt they have been the best team that we played last season. My other TV work is a programme called, “world have your say” were people from around the world can call, email and Skype in and give their views on different topics in men’s football at that time. It is good for me as it makes me research the game in more depth and find out how football is across the world, my research obviously hasn’t been the best as when I was talking about Spain and how dominate they are in the game I mentioned some players the best one being Messi (for those as daft as me he plays in Spain but his country is Argentina) Hopefully they will ask me back!!!

Now to the interesting part our end of season night out. It was quite a sophisticated affair (well at the start of the night) We met in a nice bar before walking to a lovely restaurant in the centre of Lincoln, everyone attended and after our meal the awards were presented. Sophie Bradley won players player of the year, Leandra little won managers player of the year and the best prize went to Jess Clarke who won wolly of the year, this was during Rods team talk when he said “remi anchoring” and Jess thought we had signed a new player called Corrine, and turned to me and said, “who’s Corrine” brilliant!! All the awards were well and truly deserved, it has been a good season for us but we know there is much more to come and this is just a building block, we want to win things and that’s exactly what the entire club will be working towards. We are all very professional and you would never see any of the girls getting in at 5am on the sat morning after going to a strip club being the only place open that was serving alcohol not realising what bar they were in..Mentioning no names!!!!

I would also like to take this opportunityto thank Ray True who not only treated us all to a lovely meal and drinks but has supported us through the season. Without his help we wouldn’t be where we are today and hopefully we can win something for him next season to say thanks for all his support.

I will start off with our semi final match against Arsenal on Sunday. It wasn’t exactly the draw that we wanted but in a semi final you are always going to have to play a high-quality team. As a team we trained really hard that week and worked on ways to beat Arsenal and in the past our downfall has been belief not necessarily our ability, so we worked on confidence and believing we were good enough to beat them. The first half we spent most of our time defending and went in at half time 2-0 down however the second half was different story we went for it and caused Arsenal some problems especially when Remi Allen scored a screamer to make it 2-1 we created some chances and were pushing for the equaliser that was when Arsenal hit us on the break and scored their third. The difference between the two teams was Arsenal were very clinical in front of goal but we can take a lot away from this game the fact that we matched them and could have got something from the game considering we only had 2 fit substitutes  , we all can’t wait for next season to start already. I mentioned in my earlier blog that Jody Taylor on loan from Birmingham was asked to go back to them a couple of weeks ago this was a big loss to us.  The other semi final was Everton against Birmingham; Birmingham won 2-1 and guess who scored the winner?? Jody!! So the final is Arsenal against Birmingham at Burton Albion Sunday 25^th September live on ESPN and although I wish I was playing in the game I will still be involved doing the punditry so please tune in and try not to rip my outfit as my manager Rod does every time.

My little niece started school last week, I am very biased but she is really intelligent for a four year old she can count up to 20 in English and Spanish she knows all the dinosaurs and has a vast vocabulary probably some words she shouldn’t know ( she definitely gets her brains from her Auntie Sue). We went to meet her from school and I asked how do you like school? Her reply was superb, “It’s ok Aunty Sue but I don’t think I want to go there every day” If only!!

It has been an eventful week this week, my best friend left for pastures new and decided to go to Australia for a year, it’s a really brave thing for him to do and I am sure he will be very successful over there and one plus to him leaving is I have a nice holiday destination. Although I will miss him loads I wish him all the best!!

I am pleased to say our winning streak has continued, we played Bristol on Sunday and had to win the game to finish forth and that’s exactly what we did. The game finished 3-1, it wasn’t our best performance and probably should have gone in at half time a few goals down, however the character that we have built as a team shone through and we managed to play better second half and come away with a good win. Jody Taylor scored twice and Lucy got the third another special strike from her!! This now means we play in the continental cup on Sunday against guess who? Bristol again! We have been talked about as the “In-Form team” this means nothing when it comes to cup games and we know we need to be on the top of our game to progress to the next round.

If you are over 15 and like a good laugh please go and see the inbetweeners one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a while, I went with a few of the girls and I think they enjoyed the fact that I went to the toilet part way through the film and on my way back couldn’t find my seat and tried to get into the wrong line of seats, I only realised I was wrong when I heard them giggling (my sense of direction continues to cause me trouble).

Training has been back in full swing this week, Paul our fitness coach has had us flipping tyres, throwing sand bags and pulling ropes we are definitely entering world’s strongest team after the season finishes!! Glen also decided it would be a good idea to play young ones against the slightly mature ones in five a side match, it started off all good fun until all our competitive sides took over, I think if it was a real match a few yellow cards may have been branded. Not sure you need to ask but of course the mature ones won. However I am sure miss Bradley and Miss Allen will disagree!!

Ok, Must go now someone is on the dog and bone and you would not Adam and Eve it im having a butchers luck at some barnet fair styles!!

PS Please vote for Lucy Stanforth for goal of the month on the FAWSL website I am not being biased it was an absolute corker and deserves to win. I think she may have been watching me in training

Next up was Arsenal who are currently second in the table, the least I say about this the better we were taught a footballing lesson by a very good team. The game finished 4-0 and the journey home was a very long one. Our third game in the week was against Everton  a very good team who the week before had beaten arsenal 3-1, so we knew this was going to be tough and we had to be on top form to get anything out of it.  Thankfully all of the squad was on top form and we won the game 2-0 which was a massive boost for us all and one we now need to take into the remaining games. The results just prove how close the league has become and how the level of competition has stepped up a gear from last season. This can only be good for women’s football on the whole.

A little update on our new players Emma and Jody, they have now officially moved to Lincoln and Rod deciding to help them get around this lovely city thought a bike would be quite useful. The bikes are very geek /chic retro im not sure that’s the look the girls are going for but it’s very amusing when they ride up to training ringing their bells!! After training it’s a ritual we all go to our local Tesco for food, on our way out we noticed the bikes parked outside were not chained up securely, with Jody and Emma nowhere in sight we decided to hide them.  The faces on the girls were hilarious when they thought their bikes had been stolen, after about five minutes we rode past them, cruel but very funny, think I need to watch my back; payback may be on the cards!!

Please come and watch our next game against Liverpool it’s at Sincil Bank on Sat at 1230 be the 12^th man/woman  it’s also live on ESPN so im sure the girls will be making themselves look beautiful for the TV  naming no names( Megs and Bradders)