Ilford Recorder sports reporter Neil Trainis is the star striker and top scorer at Essex Sunday Combination side Willson Sports.
His newsroom colleague is hot-shot Hannah Benjamin, who has been banging in the goals for Barking Ladies this season.
Here’s his report of how the Archant news ataff got on when they came face-to-face in the battle of the sexes.
Hannah, a news reporter for the Recorder and centre forward for Barking Ladies Football Club, has reluctantly agreed to do a feature on her team at the Jo Richardson Community School in Dagenham, where they train.
I am the guinea pig (or rather the blindingly ignorant, impressionable, reporter hungry for stories) for this experiment and to be honest, the prospect of facing Hannah head on in a kind of battle of the sexes does not fill me with great comfort, particularly as some of my colleagues have taken immense pleasure in winding her up.
It seems I am to be subjected to all her pent up frustration.
‘Maybe she is above all of this,’ I think to myself. ‘Maybe she can take it. She’s a big girl. It’ll all be okay.’
Suddenly, I feel better about things and I am consoled with the thought that this feature will run smoothly.
“Don’t listen to them Hannah,” I say.
I get the nasty feeling my belated attempt to soothe her irritation has failed miserably though, but as we climb into her car, I see her anguished expression has disappeared. Suddenly, all my hopes are raised.
As we pull out of the car park, she smiles and says: “When a few of the team heard a reporter from the paper was coming down, I could tell they were looking forward to it. Just to warn you in advance.”
Looking forward to it! Warn me! They were words that sent a wrecking ball crashing through my flimsy confidence. My head starts spinning at a million miles per hour. ‘Don’t jump to conclusions. She’s only joking,’ the voice inside my head says.
We arrive at the school and I see a few of her team-mates sitting in the foyer. They see me and start giggling.
‘Oh boy. Perhaps she wasn’t joking after all,’ it says. I’m a nervous wreck when Barking Ladies manager Steve Bernet walks through the door. A wave of relief sweeps over me. For once, I feel glad to see a man among so many women.
We stride out towards the five-a-side pitches and Jules, the newspaper photographer and another girl, wants to get a couple of group pictures.
‘Painless. No problem,’ I think. She wants to get me lying across the ground in front of the team. Fine. Nothing wrong with that. It will be a doddle.
“Right. I want you girls to put your feet on him, almost like you’re stamping on him, but obviously not stamping on him,” Jules laughs as I lie there. I feel I am paying for the sins of others.
“You go in goal Neil and let Hannah take some shots at you,” Jules insists a few minutes later. Hannah does not need to be asked twice. She grabs a ball, places it on the ground, takes a couple of steps back, runs up and unleashes a shot that crashes into the top corner.
I am left rooted to the spot, as I am on the next five attempts Hannah has at goal. I take charge and decide that Hannah and myself will engage in a spot of one-on-one tackling. I throw the ball to Hannah, who controls it on her instep, balances it on her foot and flicks it up before trapping it on the way down.
I move towards her and try to stab a leg at the ball but I end up swiping at thin air as she whips it away.
This ignominy goes on for a few minutes, in which time I hardly get a glimpse of that blasted ball.
I take control again (not of the ball, of the situation) and suggest I face a few more shots.
I’m determined to save at least one, but as Hannah rockets the ball into the bottom corner for the umpteenth time, I think to myself, ‘I wish those who poured scorn on her, and women’s football, were here now!’