FeatureGrace Fisk diary: The captain's inside story of LFC Women's pre-season training camp

We travelled by coach from the AXA Melwood Training Centre on Sunday, with plenty of time for card games. A few of us sat at the back playing several different ones, which helped pass the time.

After arriving at the Vale Resort, we had a quick dinner. Everyone was tired, so we had an early night to make sure we were ready for a big week of training.

This pre-season has been very different from last year. Back then, we were starting from scratch with the coaches, whereas most of the team are now familiar with what they want and expect, which helps.

I’d say we arrived for the first week back at Melwood in sharp form and almost surprised ourselves with just how sharp we were. This week has been especially useful for the new players, with meetings and training sessions helping them adapt to and understand what is needed, both on and off the pitch.

I was chatting to a few of the new faces and they’ve settled in seamlessly, which is always nice to see as captain. I try to help in any way that I can but Morag [Murray], our player care officer, deserves a lot of credit as she has allowed them to focus on football straight away.

Sara [Agrez] was a teammate of Marie Höbinger at Turbine Potsdam. Her and Vivien [Endemann] also knew each other from playing in the Bundesliga.

It’s the same with Mari [Ward] knowing Zara [Shaw], Khiara [Keating] with a few of us and Mao [Itamura] has a compatriot in Fuka [Nagano] having joined a bit later.

I also learnt that Mao is doing computer programming at university so she’s a clever girl. I think a training camp accelerates the process of them fitting in with spending so much time together. You get over the small talk and quickly start having more meaningful conversations.

Khiara is someone I already know from Lionesses camps, but she’s been such a great personality – really refreshing as well. It’s a very serious environment, fiercely competitive, but she has the one-liners and says what everyone is thinking.

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On Wednesday night we had a team quiz, which was fun but tricky for us as we finished last.

Our team’s name was ‘By all means enjoy it…’ which is the start of a famous Neil Warnock quote, but perhaps we weren’t all that disciplined after all. It was good fun, though, so thank you to Jayne and Stan in the travelling party for putting it on for us.

Mao was on our team and she delivered for us with one brilliant answer about the speed of light. It goes to show how everyone has little nuggets of knowledge that they can contribute.

As I mentioned, there’s been plenty of card games knocking about when we have a bit of free time. Brandi Dog is the most popular with our Scandi contingent but it was a bit too hectic for my liking. We’ve had Bananagrams and Wizard too.

There’s always a game going on somewhere and while we’re very competitive on the pitch, it’s arguably been even worse off it at times with those games!

We also had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon trip out to Barry Island. I’ve watched the Gavin and Stacey Christmas specials and I’m a big fan. I don’t know loads about it, but it was lovely.

We had cracking weather, visited the amusement park and slot machines and finished the day with a Mr. Whippy and a flake so you can’t ask for much more really.

Thursday was an open training session where we had a local team, Trefelin BGC, watching. It was a pleasure to meet them, sign some autographs and see them smiling.

Our WSL fixtures were announced the same day, with Charlton Athletic away confirmed as our opener. We faced them in the FA Cup last year and it was a really tough game, so it should be a good test to start with. Both teams will be right up for it and we’re excited.

We can’t wait to get the season going as there is a real focus and drive to ensure we’re significantly better than last year.

We’ve been training really hard to make sure that’s the case and hopefully give back to our fantastic supporters with some exciting football.

Thanks for reading and see you soon,

Grace

• See more about Trefelin BGC's visit to the camp here