Last week the British Army women's football team were invited to watch the West Ham United first team in training as part of their pre-season preparations.
Having won the annual Inter-Services Cup for a fourth consecutive year, the tean comprises of servicewomen from a range of units across the British Army.
Speaking at the training session the manager, Major Sandra Hodgson said: "This is the culmination of a week's trial for the ladies. We've had them in all week as we're getting ready for the new season. Today we're having a day off here at West Ham, watching the men's first team in training which is brilliant, it's fantastic to be here."
Major Hodgson continued to explain how the team was formed: "The team's been in existence for around 14 years now. It started off on quite a small scale with a few girls from the UK bases only. The German based girls had their own team too.
"After a period of time that was amalgamated. Now a group of girls from Germany, the UK and Cyprus are together for training. We only get one day's training and then we play our games in the Southern Counties division. The team comes from a range of different units."
The team's captain is Sergeant Krissy Wright, who has been part of the setup for a number of years.
"The role and importance of all sports in the Army is huge. The pressure the girls are under through operational requirements, exercises and courses is huge, so sport offers us an opportunity to get together, relax a little bit and make the most of being in the army.
"Luckily fitness is not an issue as it is something we can work on when we're back in our units. We don't get much opportunity to train together as we only have a day before a game to train properly, so maintaining fitness is really important."
The required standard to impress at trials are high, and according to Wright are improving each year: "The standard is very good. I've been playing for a number of years now and the quality of the girls is definitely improving.
"We've got a few girls who have played at U16 level for England and Wales. We've got a player who plays for Portsmouth, she's currently injured. One of the girls used to play for Blackburn. So we're lucky that we've got girls who have got good experience of high level football."
With the sport's popularity increasing over the last decade, a trend set to continue, Major Hodgson concurs that standards within the women's game are improving too: "We've seen with the improvement of the quality of the players that we've had, that standards are going up.
"We've now got girls who are very good players. We're lucky that now we can use Army and Army reserve girls too. The standard is improving year on year and every time we have trials it gets harder and harder to pick players."
For Major Hodgson, unlike a normal football manager, there are a number of unique circumstances that hinder the team selection: "Obviously their Army duties are the priority and that can affect the players that are available for selection. But we try to ensure we have the strongest squad possible, especially for the Inter Services tournament.
Speaking about their hopes for the upcoming season. Both manager and captain are positive that their side can enjoy a successful campaign.
Sergeant Wright pinned her colours to the mast saying: "Hopefully a title challenge is on the cards. We came very close last season. The quality is very high but we push ourselves every season. With the players we have got this year we've got a very good squad and could well be successful."
While Major Hodgson continued to say: "We want to retain the Inter-Services trophy that we won last year. It would be devastating if we didn't win it again this year.
"It'll be our fifth consecutive win. As a player and a coach I've lost it twice over a period of about eleven years. We don't focus on losing. We will win the Inter-Services cup."
That sounds like fighting talk!