My name is Xanthe Goodman and I am a 16 year old Polocrosse player and I have been playing for 6 years. Polocrosse is an equestrian sport, a mix between Polo, Lacrosse and Rugby! It is great fun (although sometimes pretty fierce!) and is played across the world.

This year, I am looking for some donations to cover some of my competition costs for this season. Most of the polocrosse training sessions and competitions are in the Midlands and in Cheshire. As someone who is based in Essex, we travel over 100 miles just to get to training and tournaments. With the rising fuel costs, playing polocrosse is getting more and more expensive. Therefore, I am looking for some financial help to cover these costs.

At the end of 2021, I was invited on to the UK Under 21 Player Development Pathway. This has given me lots of opportunities to improve and I am working up to representing the UK at an international level over the next 5 years. This year, there may be an opportunity to represent the UK in Zimbabwe in an Under 21s Outbound tour. Ultimately, this is something that I would love to be part of in some way or another.

My long term goals for the future is to represent the UK in a World Cup. This is something that I have already planned out, and I have decided to prioritise this over some other goals. To achieve this overall goal, I need to get out to as much training and get on a pitch as much as possible in order to apply what I learn. When I can't make training sessions, I always aim to do something either with my personal fitness, my horses' schooling, or my polocrosse skills so that I am preparing myself and my horses as best I can.

In 2021, I had a really successful season as part of Arden Polocrosse Club (based in Warwickshire). Our Open Juniors team were National Champions, and I even made my debut into the C grade too. Furthermore, I represented England in the Pony Club Polocrosse Four Nations, where we won the Juniors and also played in a tough final against Wales to be the Champions again! I also represented England in 2019 where we had the same results. It feels really special to have been part of such an amazing team!

I currently work 3 different jobs to try to cover some of these costs and I physically do not have enough hours in the day to take anything else on. I have also been applying for some sponsorship to help with this too. If you have any spare pennies, please donate, anything is better than nothing and is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!

*Images courtesy of Izzy Baker Cresswell, Zoe Williams and Chris Daniels