FROM a Reading Hockey Club player to an Olympian and now a popular TV presenter and game show panellist.

Sam Quek has packed a great deal into her life and she’s not yet 30.

She has also found time to write her autobiography – Hope and a hockey stick.

As far as hockey is concerned, she concentrates on her ups and downs, being left out of the 2012 London Olympics but battling back to win gold in Rio four years later.

Along the way, she fell out with GB head coach Danny Kerry – “he didn’t like me as a player, he didn’t appreciate my style of play” – and much preferred playing under Jason Lee (now head coach to Reading Men) due to his “different style and mentality.”

Sam also gives her reasons for leaving Bowdon Hightown to sign for Reading and admits it was money that led to her joining Holcombe.

And talking of super-rich, she goes into depth about her relationship with millionaire Tom Mairs, who turned up for their first date in a yellow Lamborghini.

Their romance blossomed and they are getting married this week.

  • MARTIN Andersson, who learned his cricket at Crosfields School and then Reading Blue Coat, made his Middlesex 1st XI debut on Friday.

Having produced some impressive performances in second-team games, the 21-year-old all-rounder got his chance in the T20 match against Sussex.

The former Reading CC all-rounder opened the bowling for Middlesex but, after conceding seven runs, was given just the one over. He also took a catch and then, batting at eight, made just the one run before being bowled in his side’s 31-run defeat.

  • DAN Bayliss from Sonning Common is reported to have made an excellent start to the season for Evo-Stik League South Premier club Basingstoke Town and that could well be down to what he learned at the V9 Academy.

The centre-back was among a select group of 40 non-league players invited to the Manchester-based Academy that was the brainchild of England and Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy.

The former England Schools international tweeted: “Hell of an experience – certainly a week I’ll never forget.”