England v Australia in Las Vegas: Great Britain Lionesses remember 1996 tour
Sheldon and Thompson met Nikki Carter, a hull shrew player with management experience working in nursing homes. They asked her if she would step in with the travel manager.
Carter said: “I was asked, ‘Do you think you can help them?’
“I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They said, ‘Go to Australia with them. “I thought, “Well, I like to ask my boss the most.” ”
“But it suddenly started to disband. Many things that should have been organized for 12 weeks, and from Australia, there is actually no organization.”
There are no flights, no accommodation, no packages for tour parties.
Sheldon said: “Before Nicky, the former manager was tasked with making sure the flight was tasked, he didn’t fix them, nor did he tell us, so there were only about three weeks and we didn’t fly.
“My manager gave me time to call all airlines to try to do 32 flights with three weeks notice.”
When Sheldon classified flights, Carter soured the kit, chased the hotel, and helped complete the fundraising campaign. “Most of the funds were raised in the last eight weeks,” she said. They needed to set up a bank account quickly for the tour. In 1996, this was a problem.
Carter said: “No bank account is established in Australia, and it’s not right now, you can call the bank there and say, ‘I’m going to put this money there and I’m going to spend it from my bank account.’
“A girl on the tour played for Wakefield and was a bank manager. She said: ‘It’s impossible to set up a bank account. It took too long.”
“So I ended up with a briefcase with £29,000 in cash and traveler’s check because there was nothing else. I took that briefcase to the whole tour – I went everywhere and it all went.”
