Stratford Hockey Club’s Head Coach, Andy Hodges, was named Coach of the Year at Stratford District Council Sports Awards on Friday 2 March.
On a glittering celebration of local and community sport and in front of nearly 300 people, Andy picked up his award from former Olympian Adam Whitehead.
Andy joined Stratford Hockey Club 3 years ago and is now coaching the men’s and ladies 1st XIs and the clubs newly established academy.
Over the past 12 months Andy has coached the men’s 1st Team to their highest ever league finish, 4th in Midlands Division 1, only 16 places of National League. This followed Andy coaching the men’s 1st Team to West Midlands Premier Champions the previous season.
With the ladies 1st team Andy has turned them from being relegation candidates to pushing for promotion within 2 years. When he started coaching them halfway through a season, the ladies were staring relegation in the face. Andy helped them avoid relegation and then finish 3rd last season and look too narrowly miss out for the title this season despite winning 15 out of 18 games.
Off the pitch Andy has also worked hard to bring in extra funds for the club through attracting key sponsors and running fundraising events.