Game Ready: Laura-May Walkley

A Game Ready instalment from the SK Locker Room with the Cardiff Metropolitan midfielder and former Wales international, a standout in the Adran Premier League who combines playing with shift work at Tata Steel. Walkley eats as soon as she wakes, with a pint of water and green tea, then sugary cereal or beans on toast, and walks her father Pete’s dog before a game. Every Friday for about 15 years she has had her father’s special-recipe spaghetti bolognese, which he reckons is the best in South Wales. She needs no psyching up, listens to Eminem, and says self-belief may read as arrogance but is essential. Taylor O’Leary, Jessie Taylor and Texan goalkeeper Annabel Sweeney are the changing-room characters, and she preaches standards from the start in the warm-up.