Norwayne's Shelby Vaughn gets full English soccer experience with USYS ODP National Team
In the past year, Norwayne junior Shelby Vaughn was selected to be a member of the 05 United States Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program National Team, and with that came a trip to England this month where she and her teammates got to play a few matchups with teams overseas.
They went 4-0, Vaughn scored six goals, including two in the finale. the team received extra training from the Brentwood Town F.C. coaching staff and got to tour the sights in England. It just continues a road of success that Vaughn has cleared for herself over the recent years along with her commitment to Michigan State University.
The Daily Record asked Vaughn to write an account of her experience overseas:
My favorite place that I visited in England was Windsor Castle. In the castle we got to see where the most recent kings and queens had been buried and just outside the castle there was a restaurant called Cafe Rouge. That was my favorite place to eat at when we were there. We went to this cafe twice and the first time I got a chicken baguette which was basically a grilled chicken sandwich. Then the second time we went there, we didn’t get to really choose our food and they just gave us sausage with mashed potatoes. It was a little different. They usually don’t put as many spices and flavoring into their food like we do, so most of the time their food was bland.
England is definitely big into soccer. When we went to the Chelsea game, the whole stadium was pretty much packed. Although we didn’t get to interact with the crowd because we were sitting in one of the sky boxes. We also went to the Tottenham game, which had an even bigger crowd.
My favorite part of the trip was probably bonding with all of the girls I met. I knew most of them from my team in Florida, but we all developed a pretty strong bond while we were there. I definitely learned a lot of new things like the different foods that they eat and different things that they say.
We did have the same breakfast served to us every morning which was beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, sausage and eggs that looked a little like oatmeal, and yogurt that tasted like sour milk. I also did not try the tea because I had heard that it tasted like dirty water, so I thought I was just going to hold back on that. Although the food was not my favorite, I had a great experience playing against different girls and seeing a new side of soccer. I would go back again if I had the chance, but I would definitely bring more American food with me.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Girls Soccer: Norwayne's Shelby Vaughn details her trip to England
