The day started early as Sgt Carson picked the majority of the team up at Deepings, with me and one other being picked up at Bourne. The minibus journey was buzzing with the confidence sky high.

When we arrived at PWOG Grantham, we unloaded the minibus of our equipment and settled into one of the classrooms that we would call home for the day. Once settled we gathered onto the parade square for a quick brief where we went onto the obstacle course for that brief. After Staff Rayner’s interesting brief it was onto the shooting brief where we were told what was happening by SMI Marshall.

When we had concluded our briefs the webbing was sitting waiting for our return. Then came the task of picking a number out of a hat. Carson had the ‘5’ which didn’t bother us because it meant that we could get the obstacle course out of the way first.

The course was a piece of pie with many conquering fears of heights, after the six foot wall we were flying until we occurred our first and only penalty which couldn’t be helped. After the course we were glad to hear that we were first for the day!

After came the drill, what a laugh. After cleaning our boots for the second time, we went onto the parade square to home in on our drill skills. We soon found some weak points in the drill, mainly right turns on the march. After practicing this we went for a nice healthy dinner.

We pretty much aced the drill with little faults. Yay! After the drill we found it appropriate to jeer at some of our mates from another detachment, as the confidence was massive. After a quick change of clothing it was time for the field craft in which I was lead scout, which meant that they had to listen to me! After a ‘successful’ show in the equipment check we went onto the exercise, where we were shot a few times by the enemy, we went straight into our section battle drills. After successfully conducting a section attack we went onto the March and Shoot, which was a great success as we all worked as a team and pulled through to complete it in just over 23 minutes.

Map and compass followed which with moderate success went well. After a good written part to it followed the practical, which told us that we need more practice at it.

After packing away all our gear it was time for the presentations, a member of our team won best male cadet which pleased not only him but the whole team as we believed he deserved it. Then came the big award. The Winners of the SSM Trophy, joint 4th place was Bourne and Grantham QRL, 3rd was Grantham RLC, this meant only Sleaford and Deeping could win, after the 2nd place team was mentioned joy went immediately to the winning team… which was to our amazement, US! We had beaten Sleaford and managed to walk away with the big trophy. After the collection came the pictures, which were taken with massive, smiles upon our faces.

The bus journey home was unsettled as we just wanted to celebrate the win. All with trophies in our hand we went home a lot happier than what we came. Overall I believe that members of the team had a great day and really enjoyed themselves.

We hope to retain the trophy next year with hopefully a stronger team.

L/Cpl M. Bowler