Winchester Hockey Club Oracle Edition 34
Message from the Chair
Club Progress
Winchester Hockey Club is delighted to announce it has once again been fully accredited as an England Hockey ClubMark accredited Club.
Huge thanks to all our wonderful and great team of coaches, team managers, umpires and all volunteers who just make so many good things happen around the club and across all of the junior section.
Many of the junior coaches and managers have registered with the England Hockey Hub, taking on coaching development skills courses over the last year. It is so important that we continue to deliver great fun coaching in a safe and open environment across our junior section, as we develop aspiring youngsters to make the most of our fantastic sport. Particular thanks to all those coaches and managers who urgently found the time to complete the online safeguarding courses. Brilliant response Team Winch – thank you.
This accreditation is a great achievement – and demonstrates 15 consecutive years of good club organisation and sporting achievement. Well done all.
Our plans for the future don’t stop here…
As well as developing our coaching programme, the club is determined to gear up to providing Talent Centre level coaching over the coming seasons. This is an exciting programme, and we would like to see more people involved in helping us deliver this. If you could help and are interested in joining our successful team, please contact Tim Lander.
Lastly, you may not know this, but Winchester HC has generated a huge level of individual and sporting success through its junior coaching programmes and team approach to hockey, from county level representation right through to the highest level of international representation. There are not many clubs in England that have achieved so much – and we are justifiably proud of our youngsters’ achievements. Our young players are at the right club for all levels of participation and development – 7 international, 4 futures cup, 21 representatives at Performance Centres and 6 at South Saxons in the last year!!
On Saturday 26th Feb the club played seven Under 18 players in the Men’s and Ladies 1st XI – an outstanding example of the Club’s player development pathway demonstrating the opportunities open to our junior players. Well done all.
U12 Girls
In2Hockey
Currently sitting in third place in the Hampshire Div 1 U12 Girls’ League, the Winchester U12 A team went to the In2Hockey County tournament with high hopes, but unfortunately things didn’t quite go the way of the Winchester Girls. With a solid defence they only conceded three goals in seven games, but despite some great attacking play and strikes on goal, on this occasion they just struggled find the net up front.
The first match saw the Winchester girls go 1-0 down to Havant in an end-to-end tussle with a team that eventually made it to the final. The second match was against Basingstoke and although Winchester had most of the play and were dominant throughout the whole of the match, they squeezed through with a 1–0 win after a well taken goal by Rosanna FR.
Next up was an Aldershot & Farnham - not a team the girls had played before and again another tight 12 minute match saw end-to-end action, but no goals for either team (0–0).
The fourth match was against Alton and although again the Winchester girls had dominating attacks with some fantastic runs from the forwards and a well finished goal from Isla B, Alton scored a late equaliser to finish with a 1–1 draw.
The next match was against New Forest and finally the girls found their shooting form in style with a 6–0 win (Isla T x 4, Orla & Emma).
The final pool match was against Romsey, who the girls were more than capable of beating, but again goals eluded them and another end-to-end match saw Romsey take a great goal nearing the end of the 12-minute match. It didn’t leave much time to pull a goal back, meaning the Winchester Girls were in the 7th / 8th play-off.
The final match of the day was the playoff for 7th / 8th match. Winchester rallied to show what a great bunch of determined girls they are, with a convincing 2–0 win (Isla T & Emma L) against Isle of Wight.
All in all the girls had a great afternoon of hockey - it may not be the result that they had hoped for but this group of girls show great promise, talent, resilence and determination.
Squad: Isla T, Isla B, Freya P, Rosanna FR, Ally B, Orla E, Thea M, Emma L, Ella R