The venue for the first ever Spain-Ireland Women’s GC match was the Villa Padierna Racquet club on the Costa del Sol, about 10k from Estepona. There were two excellent croquet lawns surrounded by tennis and padel courts, lots of palm trees and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach about 50 yards away. 93 Spanish ladies had put themselves forward for the team to play against Ireland and the eight selected included Spain’s top players. The Irish team was more developmental in nature with many players with little or no match experience.  It was always going to be a “big ask” and so it proved, with the first round of games all going Spain’s way.

The following day I had two very hard fought wins over Susana Romero and Maria Taylor, both players were very impressive with long clearances the norm, superb hoop running and a fantastic jump shot by Susana over my ball at hoop 10 to level the score at 5-5 with time closing in.  Only a ridiculously lucky cannoned clearance gave me a shot at hoop 11 to win the game. This game was watched by a large crowd of knowledgeable and sporting Spanish supporters who were applauding all of the play. These were our only two wins but Patricia Whitty deserves a mention for her 6-7 loss to Spain’s no.3, Begoña Gomez and Nicola Kelly who had a -1 on time against the talented Begoña Elzaburu. 

There is no doubt that the Irish players learned a huge amount from the fixture and will take this forward into the coming season back home.

The Spanish hospitality was wonderful. Starting with the national anthems at the opening ceremony and continuing with a very lively tournament dinner at a nearby restaurant, with flamenco dancing, Irish dancing and singing and finally a very exciting raid by the Spanish police for being too noisy. The owners simply shut off the outside part of the restaurant and the singing and dancing continued into the small hours. The presentation took place in the garden of a local player with drinks and tapas and speeches and an invitation to the Spanish to come to Ireland for a return match was met with loud cheers!

Many thanks are due to the F.E.C. for the organisation of this event and the fantastic welcome we received and we really look forward to meeting up again in Dublin next time. 

Jane