My dad came over from Germany to watch all my matches. My mum, who is Scottish, hadn't told me she would come to watch, but she was there for the games against Estonia and Bulgaria – a nice surprise. It makes such a difference having friends and family in the crowd.
After the loss against Cyprus I was down, but we had a long meeting that night and decided as a team that we needed to 'man up', use the home crowd to our advantage and fight every second of the last two games.
The game against Estonia was much better and, even though we lost by nine goals, we played well and the crowd saw that we did our best. I was happy that I scored 11 goals, the most I have ever scored in an international match – although I would rather have scored zero and won the game.
The highlight was our match against Bulgaria. We were losing by six with 15 minutes to go and in the past we often would have just fallen to pieces, but this time – with the amazing crowd and our fighting spirit – we managed to turn the game around in the dying seconds, winning with literally two seconds to go. I can't describe how good it felt to have won that game.
We have trained so hard for the last three years to get to where we are now, but there's still a long way to go. Everyone knows this though and I'm sure that, by the time we go to the Olympic Games we will have a good, competitive team.
We are a young, talented squad and what we need is experience. More games like the one against Bulgaria are perfect for us.
We have grown together as a team in recent times and our head coach, Dragan Djukic, has played an important part in this. He has laid down some rules and because everyone in the team respects them we have achieved our aim – our first competitive win on home soil!
Playing in the Olympic Games in London and representing my home country would mean everything to me, and I know it would for all the other guys as well. I have sacrificed a lot to play handball full time, including leaving behind my family and friends in Germany.
It's not always easy but I have spoken to many former Olympians who have said 'as soon as you are in the Olympic Village you forget all the hard times and are the happiest person in the world'. That I think is something worth working for!
