In 2010 the England woman's hockey team made history by winning their first ever World Cup medal. I'm Helen Richardson and I'm very proud to have played my part in this record breaking year.

2010 was always going to be a busy year for the England woman's team with three major tournaments. Having ended it with three bronze medals, breaking two records along the way, I'm going to take you through the highs, the lows, personal highlights and my thoughts on the next 20 months leading up to London 2012.

Every sports person loves playing in front of a home crowd, and I'm no different. The Champions Trophy was our first challenge, a tournament for the top six teams in the world was not going to be easy but this year it was being held in my home town of Nottingham and the extra support helped us win our first medal of the summer.

The tournament itself proved to be tough with all of our games going to the wire. With pool match wins over China, Germany and Argentina, who were the eventual World Cup winners, we were left to fight over the bronze with Germany. Our team showed a massive amount of resolve and belief over the whole week and our determination in the end was stronger than the Germans, we won another close match 2-1.

England woman have never won a medal on the world stage and I've personally been trying for 12 years! Winning mine and England's first world medal was amazing and then standing on the podium in front of a home crowd made it even more special.

Just six weeks later we were enjoying more success in a highly supported World Cup in Rosario, Argentina. Las Leonas, the Argentinean woman's team were hot favourites to take the title and with arguably the world's best player ever to play the game, Luciana Aymar in her home town, the crowds were pulsating with excitement as 15,000 fans eagerly awaited the start of every match.

After the triumph at the Champions Trophy we first of all set our sights on reaching the semi-finals, a feat that has only ever been achieved once before by England but something of which we were confident.The close matches continued, once again proving that games at this level are won and lost by the smallest of margins. After four of our five pool matches with wins against Spain, China, South Africa and a draw against South Korea [Richardson on the far right is celebrating the equaliser] we had qualified for the semi-finals with a game to spare!



The Netherlands, at the time the world's best team awaited us in the semis. We took them all the way, dominating at times and certainly not allowing their superior experience of semi-final matches undermining us in any way. Sadly we lost on penalties and once again we were to face the Germans for that bronze medal.

Having previously sat in four stadiums with the disappointment of another failed tournament running through my mind whilst watching the World or Olympic medal ceremonies, wishing it was me up there, I was finally standing on that podium feeling extremely happy. It's hard to describe; determined, professional, gritty, relentless, robust are but some of the words to express what the England players were about and I was very proud to be stood beside every one of them.

After the two tournaments I was also very happy to have scored seven goals. Playing at centre half, goals are usually difficult to come by but with freedom in my new position higher up the pitch, more goal scoring opportunities were coming my way. Due to our success at the World Cup opportunities were also coming our way off the field, with an increase in media attention leading to an exciting and rare invite onto the "red sofa" on BBC Breakfast.

The Commonwealth Games were next, just two weeks later! A multisport event added to the excitement and provided different experiences for us all. Gold was what we wanted and so we were disappointed to not make the final. However after the year we had had and some of our matches being played in 45 degrees, we were relieved to go home with another medal around our necks.

I was recently awarded the GB Hockey Athlete of the Year. This was such an honour to receive, especially as there were many contenders. It really topped off a fantastic year. Along with the award I was also invited to attend the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. It was a bit surreal when I found myself sitting behind the whole Beckham family and it was a very enjoyable evening. I was a little disappointed however that hockey didn't even get a snippet after the success we'd had this year. I think the only way of getting a mention would be to win the Olympic gold medal – we'd better do that then.

Looking forward I can't wait to test myself against the best in the world once again. The squad is very ambitious and every day we are all working extremely hard, pushing ourselves to the limit to be the best. Keep your eye on our progress; in 2011 England will be striving to win more medals at the Champions Trophy and the European Cup.

Helen Richardson plays for Reading and has been capped more than 150 times at international level