News

At our junior training session last night the coaches awarded their first stars of the month. The awards are given to children who turn up regularly, listen carefully and display good team spirit when playing in games. The children are able to take their trophies home and into school but they need to bring them back to the next training session which is November 21st as we are not able to train next week because of an open evening at the school. If you won an award but missed the photo please speak to your coach at the next training session.

A variety of craft, card and toys stalls will be attending the Christmas Fayre at Stratford Sports Club on Sunday 18th November from 12 noon. Please go and support members of the hockey club and solve some Christmas present challenges at the same time! They are raising money to support our Little Sticks programme going forward. 

New on Facebook and Twitter this week please vote for the performance of the weekend. This week Ladies 3s have been nominated for playing with 10 players and just missed out on victory loosing 1-0 to Warwick Uni. The Men’s 3s were also nominated for their tough fought victory at the weekend to keep them top of their league on goal difference. Next weekend if teams or individuals feel they are worthy of a nomination please let me know at [email protected] by Sunday evening. Two nominations will be selected for the poll. We will trial to see how this goes for a couple of weeks. The poll remains open for 6 days. 

The Men’s O40s played their first round cup match on Sunday 4th November at Stratford School. It was a close fought game and opinion seems to be that they should have won but they were narrowly defeated by a slightly younger Khalsa squad. Let’s hope that the O50s can have more success when they play their first round cup match next weekend.

Oliver Tompkins scores his first goal and Matt Davis his first hat trick for the mens 1s in their 4-2 defeat of Old Halesonians on Saturday in the snow to remain undefeated this season

Hopefully you have all enjoyed your first half term of junior traning. We will be back on 7th November – the weather is starting to get colder so please think about wearing warm clothes that still enable you to move around! As we were visiting one of our many tournaments we saw this sign on the pitch which we all thought was great. This made us remember what junior hockey should be about. Have a great half term.  

On Sunday 21st October Stratford’s U14 girls took part in their first ever England Hockey Championship, playing against Banbury and Old Sils. The tier 3 competition is set up so that the clubs play each other in a mini tournament format with each team hosting one tournament. The girls had never played together in a team before and for many it was their first opportunity to play hockey with their peers at this level. For this reason the players were tried out in a variety of positions with Abbi Briggs showing great promise in defence and Alannah Swift showing great skills in Midfield. Abbi Brennon also shone in defence, when previously used to playing as centre forward. Livvy Finch battled hard up front to get away a number of shots and creating a number of short corner opportunities. Captain for the day was Izzy Lambourne who had helped the ladies 3 secure their first league win on the previous day and Izzy Briggs showed great positional awareness. Imogen Hill read the game well and intercepted some great passes to enable Stratford to press forward and support Hannah Curtis who got a much deserved goal in the second match. Izzy Montandon had a fantastic morning in goal making some amazing saves including diving at the feet of an attacker and flicking the ball away to prevent a goal. 

The winners of the photo competition are as follows:

Ladies 1s – superhero theme added something!, Mens 3s and the Badgers! I just need to work out how I get the bag of Jelly babies to each team now !

If you didn’t take part in the competition it is not too late to get an up to date team photo on your page – or I may select a photo of any random team to put there!

The Ladies Midlands’s Masters trials for the O40s, O45s, O50s, O55s and O60s ae to be held on Sunday 28th October at Cannock Hockey Club. The O40s and O45s need to meet for registration at 9:45am and the trials will be finished at 12:30pm. The registration of the other three age groups starts at 1:15pm and should be finished at 3:30pm. Please take along £7 match fee and dark and white socks/shirts and confirm by 21st October that you do want to attend by emailing [email protected]. Good luck and let us know if you attend – photos please – and also if you get selected!

The Men’s 1s and 3s have had a fantastic start to the season topping their respective leagues on goal difference. Great to see lots of goals being scored and not many going in at the other end! Both teams had new captains this season as well – so good job Oli Needham and Jamie Brooks. Well done guys keep up the brilliant hockey!