A footballer's life on the road

Our squads have faced a tough start to the season so far and the players have come through this test with flying colours.

Not only is quality of opposition a challenge - including Sunderland, Liverpool and Crewe - but also the distances we have travelled. This is not always straightforward for a seasoned professional player to negotiate, never mind a young player of nine years old! So it is trial and error to discover what works for each individual when learning to prepare both mentally and physically to play football at the highest level.

This often takes time and experience to find what suits when travelling two and half hours on a coach to play a football match. Players must discover their own routine of when to eat and drink, and what to eat and drink - on both the outward and return journey - no different to professional players playing in The Premiership or Football League.

There have been some terrific individual and collective performances so far - the U14s encounter with Sunderland AFC was notably packed with football of the highest quality, our U16s trip to Liverpool was a real tough test which showed that our players have so many other elements to their game, the U12s overcame an extremely physical contest at Crewe, while our U10s have consistently played with poise and quality way beyond their years in every match so far.

This bodes extremely well for our future, and with two players now firmly implanted in the international set up, proves that Lincoln City's FA Girls Centre of Excellence is taking giant steps forward.