{"id":156,"date":"2016-03-04T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T09:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christchurchsportnews.wordpress.com\/?p=156"},"modified":"2017-03-28T15:10:53","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T14:10:53","slug":"nicole-pepper-christ-church-sport-scholar-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/nicole-pepper-christ-church-sport-scholar-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicole Pepper, Christ Church Sport Scholar &#8211; Football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-bottom:8pt;background:white\"><span style=\"font-family:'Calibri', 'sans-serif';color:black\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/41.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-160\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-160 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/41.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"4\" width=\"300\" height=\"173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/41.jpg 584w, https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/41-300x173.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>It all started for me at the age of 13. \u00a0I finally found a local girls&#8217; football team to play in. During my first season I racked up a solid 55 goals! \u00a0It was only at the end of that season that I thought to myself, &#8216;this is what I want to do in the future!&#8217; <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:8pt;background:white\"><span style=\"font-family:'Calibri', 'sans-serif';color:black\">At the age of 15, I was scouted for Charlton. \u00a0The standard was so different which enabled me to develop as a player. By 16\/17 I was in the first team at Gillingham, gaining more experience by the minute. At 17, I was selected for my first ever England Under 19&#8217;s camp. I was over the moon! I found myself constantly rereading\u00a0the email I received as I felt I was in a dream. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:8pt;background:white\"><span style=\"font-family:'Calibri', 'sans-serif';color:black\">I spent just under two <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/image2.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-161\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-161 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/image2.png?w=300\" alt=\"image2\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/image2.png 359w, https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/image2-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>years playing for Chelsea&#8217;s development squad. I continued to enjoy playing and my game was constantly improving. Whilst at Chelsea, I got to train with some of the best players in the world &#8211; training alongside the likes of Eniola Aluko and Katie Chapman. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:8pt;background:white\"><span style=\"font-family:'Calibri', 'sans-serif';color:black\">At the end of my second season I decided it was time to move on and push to get first team in an FA WSL 2 side. I began training with Watford Ladies and immediately felt that was the team for me! Shortly after I signed my inaugural\u00a0first team contract and have gone on to feature in all matches since. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom:8pt;background:white\"><span style=\"font-family:'Calibri', 'sans-serif';color:black\">I&#8217;m so determined to continue to improve my game. I am currently pushing myself to be selected for England Under 23&#8217;s. The hard work is just beginning. My dream is slowly becoming true!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It all started for me at the age of 13. \u00a0I finally found a local girls&#8217; football team to play in. During my first season I racked up a solid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116870,"featured_media":164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,37,85,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christ-church-sport","category-football","category-scholars","category-women-in-sport"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"James Cook","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/526\/2016\/03\/profil-photo-blog.jpg","postExcerpt":"It all started for me at the age of 13. \u00a0I finally found a local girls&#8217; football team to play in. During my first season I racked up a solid [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116870"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1137,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/1137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/christchurchsport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}