England play hockey with world's big boys
If you want to keep a low profile, you could hardly do better than hanging out in the Reading suburbs on a soaking wet Thursday evening in November.
Only the hardiest hockey players (and the most idiotic reporters and cameramen) would brave a training session in the cold and the driving rain at the .
The country's top players had been hoping to stay under the radar, gradually building a team capable of being among the top teams at the 2010 World Cup and gaining a medal at the 2012 Olympics.
in August changed all that, though, as they knocked off Olympic champions Germany to win the first major title for a British team since the 1988 Olympics.
They have gone from being nearly men (fifth place for England at the 2006 World Cup and ) to having a far higher profile as one of the teams to beat.
I'm Martin Gough and I cover all Olympic sports but in particular rowing, which I've been a fan of since the age of three, when I watched on TV as Cambridge sank in the Boat Race. .
