Tara Smith

It’s with heavy hearts that we have to let you know that our lovely team member Tara has sadly passed away.
Tara was a very well liked member of the team, and we all have fond memories of her defensive play and know she was excited to be joining the playing squad.
Tara will be sadly missed, and we will be wearing black armbands as a mark of respect during our Birmingham League fixtures in November.
She was simply a joy to have as part of the team, and the following tribute by Ian (our Coach) sums Tara up brilliantly.
"Even after just a few months with the group, we all came to know Tara as a fantastic - 100% competitive - person who will be such a big loss to her family and friends and more particularly to this football squad, who all loved her to bits.
I found her attitude - and the way she wanted to learn and be better at every aspect of a challenging new sport for her, in double-quick time - to be exemplary!
Truly, a coaches dream.
The fact that she had played rugby meant that from day one she understood all about team-work and by 'eck, how hard she worked for her team-mates whether it was 3 a-side or 7 a-side or just a training drill.
It is so very sad that after some weeks of trying to convince her that she'd be absolutely fine in the League matches, she won't have the opportunity to play.
With today's very sad news, there are going to be a few opposition players who will never now know just how close they came to being on the end of one of Tara's '100% challenges'.
Personally, I was so looking forward to unleashing such a fiercely-competitive character on them over the coming months and years and it's so, so sad that it won't now happen.
My abiding memory of Tara, which will always make me smile, is from the last training session she attended.
She'd kicked the ball out during the match and took a couple of steps forward with the idea of retrieving it.
Then she remembered the 'dark art aspects' we'd been discussing for a few weeks.
She stopped, turned round, looked at me and said: "Fetch it yourself!" which was accompanied by a rather too 'enthusiastic' 'V' sign in my direction!
I loved the banter and Tara certainly did!
That one moment encompassed everything about Tara the player and Tara the character; humour, the craic (which she loved), competitiveness and how she followed instructions, always trying to be better.
Great lady.
I'm really saddened to hear the news."