One of the many joys of being an international volleyball player is the opportunity to travel the world - even if that does mean getting up at 2.45am to board the team bus to Manchester Airport en route to our next competition destination - Kladovo, Serbia.

On arrival, we’re greeted by temperatures of 36°C and a shiny Mercedes Benz coach. The following four-hour journey turned out to be a kamikaze, white-knuckle ride on a cliff-top road along the River Danube, with the driver approaching terrifying speeds.

That treat was compounded by the absence of a single "comfort break" for the entire four hours. Quite a challenge for most people, let alone a team of female athletes who had to stay hydrated for the evening training session that awaited them!

Finally arriving at the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised. The place was great, the food delicious and our hosts were very welcoming. Post-lunch, we headed off for a swift power nap to revitalise minds and bodies for the evening training session.

Anticipation and excitement are common feelings on arrival at a competition venue and as we glimpsed our opposition, most of them towering more than 6 feet tall, it was time to focus on the task at hand - beating Serbia, ranked tenth in the world.

Now, we’re used to training in Sheffield with temperatures of around 15°C, so it took a while to acclimatise to the stifling heat of the Jezero Sports Hall. Despite that, the training session was focused and highly competitive.

Next morning, the temperature had soared to 38°C, and in the sports hall most of us were sweating ever so slightly more than normal. Cue our stat-man Matt, who doubled up as our floor mop for the day. Once that was sorted, the training session ran like clockwork and we were ready! The team’s mood was extremely upbeat as we left for the hotel for a couple of hours’ downtime.

Back at the sports hall for the match, we were met by TV crews and Serbian children asking for photos and autographs. We could already hear the crowd. Pre-match, our dressing room routine always includes loud music, a sing-along and lots of banter! It was going to be tough to beat a very tall and experienced Serbian team, but we were quietly confident.

Entering the arena, the 2,000-strong home crowd was chanting songs and a brass band pounded out tunes. We could barely hear ourselves think. What an atmosphere! If only we could get a crowd like this to our home games in Britain. 

We played some really good volleyball despite a disappointing 3-0 loss. Serbia struggled at times to handle the speed and variation of our offence. We surprised them with combination plays, defended some amazing balls and blocked some of the best players in the world. Not the result we were looking for, but everyone thought we could take some sets in the the following day’s match.

Today’s training started at 9am and focussed on offence!  Again, the tropical climate of the Jezero Sports Hall was challenging, but we trained with a confidence and belief that we could win sets and, hopefully, our first match of the season. 

The opening set was one of the best sets we’ve ever played. We took risks, trusted in our game plan and executed our skills well. As we approached the business end of the set, however, Serbia grew in confidence and closed it out. We weren’t disheartened: we’d just proved we could compete against this team. We went into the second set on a high but started to make mistakes that left us with a huge points deficit. Battling on, we caught them up, but the pressure of the Serbian serve was the difference between the two teams and resulted in another 3–0 win for Serbia.

Yes, the results didn’t materialise, but we’re really proud of our achievements this weekend. The progress we’ve made since playing Serbia one year ago is astonishing. It has given us confidence in the hard work we’re putting in every day and makes us even more determined ultimately to win matches against Serbia.

Despite the progress we’ve made as a team since the beginning of the GB programme in 2007, recent funding cuts mean that we’re desperate to find a team sponsor to help finance our programme on the road to London 2012. We need to play more matches to help us continue to progress. If we don’t find sponsorship or additional funding, our dream of competing at London 2012 will be destroyed. So we urge you, please, to help us in any way you possibly can to keep this dream alive.

Come along to K2 Crawley on Saturday and Sunday this weekend (June 19 and 20) to support us in our next European League matches against Bulgaria. If a small town in Serbia with a population of 30,000 people can get 2,000 fans to support their national team, surely a city like London with a population of 7.5 million can do the same. Support Team GB!

Lynne Beattie, 25, is the captain of Britain's volleyball team. For more details on the matches at Crawley click here.

British Volleyball is represented by davidwelchmanagement.com