Laura Pennington, TRFC ladies, interview.
Tranmere ladies have been impressing this season, with their progressive playing style meaning many goals are scored against the opposition they come up against.
This has ensured that it has been a great start to Marc Joyce’s reign as manager, Rovers sitting second in the table and looking to add onto their league momentum with a victory this weekend against Mossley Hill.
I caught up with the scorer of nine goals so far this campaign in Laura Pennington, as her attention returns to sporting action following a winter break.
Laura, thank you for your time, how would you describe yourself as a player and could you tell us a little bit about your career so far?
I started playing football from the age of 8 when I joined Mostyn Dragons boys team and then moved on to a girls team.
I played for my local ladies team Northop Hall until I made the move to TNS a few years ago.
TNS dropped the ladies team for a season but the team moved and continued to play as Wem Town, that team was great as it was a closely knit group of players.
I made the move to Tranmere at the start of this season.
How would you describe your time at Tranmere? There seems to be a real togetherness in the squad and Marc Joyce seems to be getting the best out of that, with convincing wins and a great scoring record.
I’ve really enjoyed my time at the club so far, it’s been great. The girls I play with are lovely and have made me feel really welcome, the coaching staff are fantastic too.
I’ve always been a striker or a player with an attacking role, I like making attacks happen and I love the goal involvements that creates.
In training we tend to focus on our attack a little bit, there’s a good commitment from everyone in sessions.
What is it like to be a ladies footballer for Tranmere? Your weekly routine etc in terms of match preparation and recovery, touching on ladies football in general.
I work full time as an exercise physiologist at LHCH, which takes up quite a lot of my time in the week.
The team trains on a Tuesday and a Thursday, which is a decent two hour session at Vauxhall. I also help the team with their strength and conditioning which is really cool to be given that opportunity.
In my personal time, I like to do individual exercise so I will go on runs and go to the gym which adds to my match fitness and preparation.
Touching on the winter break your now coming off from, do you believe this break is important in football as it’s something that’s often spoken about in the men’s game too? How would you say your break has gone?
I personally enjoy the break from football but I continue to do my job during this time. I did manage to get Christmas day off though!
I can see the importance of a break from sport. However, from a fan point of view I enjoy watching the games that are on television.
We were hoping to get some training sessions in between Christmas and New Year but unfortunately a COVID outbreak put a stop to those plans. It’s been frustrating, COVID putting a stop to footballing plans, but the league has been quite good with us this year with the rotational side of things.
Mossley Hill are the visitors this Sunday, have you spent much time considering what they play like and how would you say Rovers’ chances of getting another league win?
We definitely focus on the visitors quite a bit when we’re in training. We’ve also played Mossley Hill once this season so we’ll bare that in mind too.
I feel this is an unexpected game as we were supposed to be having another week off before returning to action. However, it’s good to be back and we’ve got to make sure that we’re focused.
The previous game against them went quite well, I got my first competitive hat trick and we won nine or ten nil so it was quite a high scoring game.
I believe they had quite a few players away that day, through injuries etc but that doesn’t take anything away from our performance.
It’s always important to go into games with a positive mindset and we were feeling prepared after training last night. It was great to see all the girls back together again and we’re looking forward to playing again.
Lastly, as we look at the remaining months of the season, what would you say your personal and team aims are for this campaign?
We’d love to get promoted! I feel this season is going really well for us so that is a realistic goal. In terms of my game, it’s important to continue doing what I love the most in scoring and making assists.