At this year's Natwest Island Games, I will be representing Team IW, along with a team of 19 other talented women footballers.

Women's football is one of the fastest growing sports in the UK - partly due to the recent success of England's team, the Lionesses, who smashed the 2020 Euros, with both great campaign and an incredible overall tournament win.

This week's Island Games will be a great opportunity for me and the rest of the team to showcase Women's Football and encourage other girls and young women on the Island to play and watch.

Team IOW is in Group B, where we will play the likes of the Isle of Man and the Spanish island of Menorca, aiming to finish high in our group and progress to the knockout stages. 

The selection process began with an initial squad of 34 and that was reduced to just 20, after several training sessions and trial matches.

Those who were not included in the final squad are all exceptional players and were very unfortunate to miss out, highlighting the great standard of the 20 players who made the final squad.

Being selected and being given the opportunity to represent the IW on a national level makes me and my family very proud.

I began loving and playing football aged around 5, so it's a dream to be able to play on such a big stage - a competition which has been described as a scaled-down version of the Olympics.

At the age of just 17, this year’s Island Games in Guernsey will be my first ever experience of participating in the bi-annual games, so I can’t wait to get to there and get started.

  • Read more in this week's County Press, in shops from July 7. We have a special eight page supplement introducing Team IOW inside. See Sienna's column on page 33.

Since the beginning of May, we’ve been training three days a week together, as a squad.

Morale is high and we are a very tight-knit group who understand each other's strengths and weaknesses on the pitch.

My mum and many other supporters are travelling out to Guernsey to watch the games, so the team and I are even more determined to return to the IW with a medal.

Of course we are ultimately aiming to win gold and if we do, it will be the Isle of Wight's first time since Women’s football was introduced to the competition, back in 2001.