Beckhams Ball Girl
Football
Stephanie was an only child for best part of her early years and didn't realise that she too was is simply known as a traditional 'Tom Boy!' From copying the shaving antics of her step-father..."I used to watch Peter (My step-dad) shaving in the bathroom mirror and because nobody told me that I was a girl I started shaving my sideburns on a regular basis! It wasn't until Peter caught me one day and told me not to do it and because he didn't explain why I felt so embarassed as I still wasn't told back then that I was a girl!"
Stephanie, being the tomboy that she was (Is...! The Ed) Stephanie became adopted by her local church contact center as goalie as she was, as previously mentioned, taller than her fellow team mates!..."They always used to stick me in goal as I was as tall as a teacher but I always wanted to be on the pitch! I used to get fed up of standing around waiting for the ball but do you know I never once let a goal in all the while I played!"...Stephanie was in goal when a new boy member (Stephanie was the only girl in the team!) had joined the opposing side..."He was HUGE! I had never seen such a big lad as this one and he had a ginger mop of hair that even Chris Evans would be proud of! I saw this guy running down the end of the indoor pitch and he was getting closer and closer and bigger and BIGGER until all of a sudden...Pow! He had kicked the ball with this big meaty kick and the ball came flying at me faster than I had ever seen it before! I jumped up as I had did every other time to save it and I saved it all right...with a broken arm to go with it!"...The ball had hit Stephanies arm with such force that she heard it snap! "The other team were calling me a wimp as I didn't cry at first but after a while my arm began to really ache and it had swollen so much that it was obvious what had happened! I burst into tears but came back from the hospital with a plaster cast and don't those things smell like cheese when they get wet!"
At school Stephanie continued playing football and finally got the chance to play mid field after asking if she could join the official team..."I told my step-dad I wanted to play football and had to ask a special board if I could play as they didn't allow girls to play football in those days! I wondered why there was such a fuss but then again it has only been the more recent years that I have realised that I am actually a girl and do you know I still have a problem with it! I want to be a boy!" (Er...Just stick to the day job Steph!)
Later Stephanie became proud supporter, lines person and coach of a local team who worked their way up the division..."I think they only played better because they were embarassed to have a girl shouting at them! I did a really good job though!" From the enthusiasm Stephanie was asked to form a girls team on more than one occasion but confesses to just being happy with watching! "I love the skill involved and I do not know what a footballers legs look like if I was to see a pair! I am far too busy watching the game to notice!"...Such a lover of football Stephnaie even dated a Chelsea player in 1996! No names mentioned though! (Awww! The Ed!)
Gymnastics
Bendy
Stephanie was noticed at school by a gymastics scout after performing a rather unusual dance routine. "Because I was double jointed I could move my body in weird ways and I must have looked really strange thinking back to that day! I was scouted though and began grading and training immediatly"
As a child Stephanie appeared on the South Bank Show covering ground floor work and some very unusaul double jointed moves! Stephanie graded for the BAGA awards but was unable to continue with her club once her parents moved...."It's a shame as my friend was once 'British Gymnast Champion' and I would have loved to have got to his standard of skill and fitness"
Stephanie has since tried her hand at ice skating and has been impressed at her ability on the ice..." I can still do box splits and so managed to do few twirls on the ice recently when our local town center had a temporary ice rink fitted. If I'd have known I loved ice skating as much as that I and that I had good balance and manoeuvre I might have even become professional! I'll just have to wait to be famous to appear in 'Dancing On ice!'"
Swimming
Splash
Stephanie first began swimming when she decided to jump into her uncles swimming pool surprising all of her family who also nearly had to jump in to save her thinking she was going to drown! "I had not even turned three years old when I had this urge to jump in the water! It looked so nice and calm unlike my family who nearly had a fit! Once I was in I just began swimming and they all said they had never seen anyone swim so quickly before!"
Starting off with a doggy paddle sort of style, Stephanie swam in her uncles pool as often as she could and at the seaside but didn't have official swimming lessons until she reached Junior school. "I'll never forget being in Spain once and my mum who couldn't swim got caught in the sea current and began to get washed under the waves. I was only seven at the time but I knew instinctivly that I had to pull her out or else she would drown. I had literally saved her life!"
Stephanie saved another life too another year in Spain when a young american child got carried out to sea. "She had been sitting talking to me for ages whilst building sandcastles. She was only two but the kids in America have always been more advanced than here. She disappeared and some time later her parents came running over asking if I had seen her. I told them not for a while and just as I looked out to sea I could see her bobbing up and down in the water. I didn't think twice! I swam out as quick as I could and rescued her. Her parents couldn't thank me enough!"
Competetive Winner
Flipper Feet
Stephanie began swimming for her school and competing in local and school competitions. She then swam for South London Juniors after getting picked out as she was the quickest swimmer they ever had. "I was five foot five and had size seven feet! I was taller than everyone my age and apart from giving all the boys piggy backs at school which I did every play time it also meant I reached the end of the pool quicker and my feet were so big they acted just like flippers! I was really quick though and used to finish my lanes well before anyone had even reached a quarter of the way! As soon as I heard the gun go off I would dive and reach other side nearly before coming up for air!"
Stephanie swam for the British Heart Foundation and raised a lot of money for charity. "I was also getting really good at diving until I had an accident off of the top board and it scared me so much that I stopped diving...I had got my posture wrong on this particular dive and my legs bent over so much that I hit the water really hard. It frightened me and it really hurt. I have not dived from a top board since!" Stephanie continued to gain her certificates in swimming and if had continued with her swimming would have no doubt been an olympic swimmer by now as she was a natural in the water but due to her parents move and seperation she did not continue due to a lack of pool facilities in her new district.
Oh That Shark Bite
Ibiza Style
Olympic maybe not, but if you were lucky enough to have been in Ibiza with Stephanie in 1996 you would have seen Stephanie swim so far out to sea that the reps nearly called in the beach rescue boat to find her! "I hadn't been abroad for ten years and I had missed the water immensly. I got in and started swimming and because I can stay in the water for hours at an end and I never tire if I pace myself I ended up swimming so far out to sea that even I had become scared! I had swam into a different part of the sea and the temperature had changed which was why I stopped swimming in the first place not to mention that I had began to be followed by this huge shoal of fish that I really did think were some kind of pirhana! Phew!
Anyway, I turned around to swim back and realised that there was no beach. There was no beach and no nothing except sea. I suddenly realised this was not my territory and feared for my life as I just imagined a jaws type shark gobbling me up. I started to swim and swim and swim and swim to which I thought I'd never get back and then I saw the shoreline and it was so far away! Eventually I got back into warmer waters and as I was nearing the shore all I could see was a beach full of people standing on the sand waving their arms and shouting. Everbody that was on the beach came up to me including the reps as they too had all thought that I was going to get eaten by sharks as they are regularly seen that far out! Nowadays people nickname me Sharky as I have a fixed brace on both the bottom and top of my teeth!"