Toni Duggan and Beth Mead have spoken of the “reality check” they got from spending a night with the Royal Marines as the England team get stuck into their World Cup preparations.
“There were men there who had had their legs blown off, amputees. It was inspiring for us,” said Mead, who won the Women’s Super League with Arsenal and broke the record for assists in a single season with 12. “We think we are courageous when we are on a football pitch and we have people like that – it’s part of his life, with half their body missing. It gives us a reality check.
“When we moan that we have a niggle, or our foot is hurting, it puts things in perspective and I think it has been good for us.”
Duggan, who reached the Champions League final with Barcelona before losing to Lyon and her England teammate Lucy Bronze, said hearing their stories helps lift the pressure. “When you talk about the pressure of going to a World Cup, I don’t think there’s any after hearing their stories because that’s real life,” the striker said.
“They were talking about being out in Afghanistan when the Twin Towers came down and the stuff they had to do. Wow. It puts things into perspective.” Where the Lionesses were in awe, so were the marines. “What was so surprising was they were big fans of us and so proud – and the way they talked to us, not down at us,” Duggan said. “I couldn’t believe they were even saying that because we kick a ball around.”
The England men’s team took part in similar activities before the 2018 World Cup, while the under-20 women’s team did the same before their World Cup bronze medal win the same summer.
“It was amazing,” Duggan said. “We had some team-building activities. We camped at St George’s Park. We ate the food they eat, cooked the way they do and did some team-bonding activities that were difficult, tough.”
Mead added: “We had our phones and everything taken off of us, we did loads of team-building drills. Then, at night, we had to make our own food up, warm it all up over a fire in packets, and rip it apart. We all slept in tents about an inch away from each other. We were sat round a campfire, singing together with the team, probably the most together we’ve been with England.”
With a penultimate friendly coming up against Denmark on Saturday, the team were not put through their paces on the intense obstacle courses as the men and under-20s were. “I would like to have tried it,” Duggan said. “I think some of the girls, Georgia Stanway and Ellie Roebuck, when they went to the youth World Cup, I think they went through the mud. The men did that and these were the same people they worked with.”
“We did a few drills and games, though,” Mead said. “In one we had to rescue soldiers and get them on to stretchers and carry them back to an area. Then we had to memorise different objects and were tested on them when we woke up at six this morning. We were in four different groups and had to remember them as a team. We did it, so the marines had to do a forfeit.”
Sleep, though, was more difficult. “I was struck with Keets [Nikita Parris], she’s good when she is asleep but never stops talking when she is awake,” Mead said.
Duggan grinned: “I like a few pranks so I was the last member of the team up – that’s probably why I’m a bit rough this morning! It was two in a tent, it wasn’t even a tent really. We had to build that ourselves.
“I was in with Keira Walsh. I sat around the fire with the marines just chatting all night about all different experiences, about being a leader, under pressure, and who better to learn from. They’re getting bombs fired at them, guns shot at them. Wow.”
Duggan, though, does not rate her chances as a marine – they were told there is a woman going through the training for the first time right now. “Me? I think I’d put Ellen White or Lucy Bronze up for that one.”