It may be summer... but, the new season beckons

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Annual Golf Day – Friday 15th July 2011 – Barnham Broom

You and your friends/family/colleagues are invited to participate in our Annual Golf Day which this year is being held on Friday 15th July at Barnham Broom Golf Club. The day consists of bacon bap on arrival, morning team golf, lunch, afternoon individual golf and an evening meal followed by prize giving. All standards are welcome to participate, and you can either bring a team, guests or just come alone and we'll make sure you get paired into a suitable group. Always a great event in the summer calendar so not to be missed.

We are restricted on numbers for the golf day and have just a handful of places left, so to register your participation, visit our website: www.norwichcityhc.co.uk/golfday

Pre-season fitness

At this time of year, when it is warm outside and the pub beckons, it is easy to lapse in our fitness. Summer fun must be had, but, we cannot not lose sight of the need to be fit and ready for the coming season. With such a successful season behind us, it is important for all teams to begin in September with the same competitiveness and desire to win that we finished the last with. Many of our teams will be competing at a higher level this coming year, which makes it doubly important that we ALL prepare well. We have pre-season fitness evenings commencing on 6th July from 7.30pm-8.30pm, at Taverham. These sessions will continue on every Wednesday through until pre-season training sessions start. The sessions are open to ALL, but they will be split into ability groups.

For more information visit www.norwichcityhc.co.uk/training

Coaching sessions re-start August 2nd

Pre-season training commences on Tuesday 2nd August. There are some alterations to training times for the coming season, so, it is important that you check the 'TRAINING' section of the website to view the changes that may affect you. Also, in light of the Men's first team being promoted, they, and the Men's second team, will be undertaking two training sessions per week.

For more information visit www.norwichcityhc.co.uk/training

Magnificent Mini's!

Report from Sarah Anthony – Mini Hockey Coordinator

Once again, it’s my absolute pleasure to report on a successful, busy, enjoyable season for the Mini Section of the club. There are always teething problems for the first couple of Sundays, getting children where they need to be, right group, right coach, all the necessary kit, enticing new recruits out of the clubhouse and making sure we don’t burn the bacon!! The clubhouse is alive with parents, coaches and players, the atmosphere is buzzing and the pitch is packed with enthusiastic young people (even the coaches!). Detailed reports from coaches, follow my intro, so I won’t steal their thunder too much on the first page.

It seems a long time ago now but, we hosted the most successful club tournament back in October with great weather (many may recall that we had to send all the boys home the previous season when it started to snow and then made frantic phone calls to all the clubs to say “don’t bother bringing the girls in the afternoon”). The highlight, along with the U10 boys winning the first of a succession of tournaments, was to field four U12 girls teams (everyone who was available to play got an opportunity).

Although Norwich and Harleston hosted tournaments early in the year, the rest of the Norfolk clubs packed their tournaments into the final weekends of the season which led to confusion and clashes. However, this will not be the case next season and plans are already afoot to ensure that tournaments are more spread out in the future.

As Nigel Cushion reports later on, we took the opportunity to offer the U12 boys additional coaching on a Tuesday evening which worked well. At this age, it’s often difficult to decide whether to go to rugby or hockey training on a Sunday morning and this session solved the problem.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the lead and assistant coaches, together with the junior helpers, who have appeared regularly on Sunday mornings, regardless of the weather, and given our young players such a great time. We were also very grateful to senior players within the club who came to help out. Some of the U12 girls were expecting to play in the next Ladies 1st Team game when Debbie Painter came to help with coaching and the boys were looking forward to showing Chris Perry how to do aerials and drag flicks!! Tom Franks has been dragging himself along mid-morning to take goalkeeping coaching on a regular basis and almost without exception, Katie and Sophie Clemitshaw, together with Henry Brock and Alistair Cooke turned up to help with various age groups. To name everyone who helps with Mini Coaching on a Sunday morning would be an impossibility nowadays but needless to say, you know who you are, everyone within the club is grateful for the fantastic job that is being done and all the hard work is paying dividends.

I am sure that it is not just a coincidence, that the successes various teams within the Club have enjoyed this season have been, in no small part, to the hard work of the Mini coaches, dedication of the Mini players and constant support of the Mini parents.

Finally, my thanks, as always, go to Ali for his continuing advice and support, Emily & George for all the help they have given with coaching, managing (latterly chauffeuring!!) and cooking, Fred & Maddie for their patience on a Sunday morning waiting around at the club and Bill for all his hard work at home and the club, to enable the Anthony family to achieve everything they manage to do.

U8s – Combined Boys and Girls – report from Kaz Ditchfield
The under 8's have gone from strength to strength this season, with 20-30 children attending most weeks. This is very impressive considering the age group (ranging from 4 to 8 years old). We have progressed well. The youngest players handled all the basic skills with considerable ease. We covered pushing, hitting, stopping, reverse stick, indian dribbling, block tackles, jab tackles, and even one week did the V-drag! We also covered basic rules, using the skills on the move and corners.
Plus repeated mentions to all the football fanatics that there is NO offside in Hockey!!!

With the larger numbers, and wide variety in ages and abilities it soon became apparent that for the weekly game at the end of training, the children were better off split into two groups, with the very youngest going into a little game separately - this worked very well.

Many Thanks must go to all my valiant helpers, without whom, I could not have survived the season, and not given the children the attention they needed and deserved.

Sophie and Katie Clemitshaw, Dominic Copping, Tim Leary, Haren Patel, and Guy Thrower, apologies if I've forgotten anyone.
I was very pleased with their progress, we have a good team of under 8's who I am sure would be brilliant in a tournament, especially strong on the boys this year. Very proud of all the effort the children put in.
Well done under 8's.

U10 Boys – report from Al Paterson
The U10 Boys have had a fantastic season, with the whole squad developing their hockey skills and teamwork, gaining match experience and winning tournaments. The squad of 20 ranged from the "veterans", who have been training with us since they were toddlers, to boys who have just taken up hockey. However, they all showed loads of enthusiasm and willingness to learn and by the end of the season all the players had improved substantially. What was particularly pleasing was seeing nearly all our new players taking part in their first tournaments and surprising us all with their skills, teamwork and passion for the game.

In terms of tournaments, the A team had a fantastic season, playing beautiful hockey, winning all five Norfolk tournaments comfortably and being crowned Norfolk Champions. We narrowly missed winning the Regional Championships, ending up as runners-up, having won all but one of the seven games. The U10s record speaks for itself: played 26, won 23, drawn 2 and lost 1. Goals for 111, against 5. There are definitely some future stars of the NCHC Mens' teams here!

U10 Girls – report from Emily and Sarah Anthony
Unfortunately, we have not had the luxury of a dedicated lead coach for the whole season for the U10 girls but I am happy to report that Ian Roberts is taking that role for the 2011/12 season and looking forward to the challenge. The combined efforts of Stu Peters, Geoff Spencer, Emily Anthony and Sue Tomlinson with occasional help from other club members and young helpers have, nevertheless, given the girls constructive and varied training and built up their core stills. This showed in the club tournaments with first place positions in the final two events of the season at Dereham and Pelicans. They gained a very creditable 2nd place at the County Championships and would not have looked ‘out of place’ at the Regionals.

U12 Boys – report from Matthew Brine (Pies)
The U12 Boys had yet another progressive season, putting in numerous excellent performances throughout the season, and coming away with a mix of medals from the various club tournaments. With a third place at Dereham, second place at Watton and then a first place at Pelicans, the season did indeed get better as the boys began to improve and start to play as a great "team". All of those who attended the Sunday coaching sessions were included in a good number of the tournament matches throughout the season, and it was a delight to see some of the newbies put in tremendous performances in the latter stages of the season and begin to show positive signs of how their hockey had managed to progress, some of which picking up a hockey stick for the first time. We also saw a number of our U12s step up to be part of the Norfolk County squad at the U13 age group, so a year early, playing in all of the County tournaments and regional events through the season, so very well done to them for that great achievement. The highlight of the season was undoubtedly the East National Finals, where we qualified from the Norfolk County Championships and were put up against clubs from all over the East, battling it out for the East Regional award. This was indeed a great achievement and the boys stepped up to the mark and from the outset managed to compete and put in some fine results against many unknown teams, including leading 2-0 against the eventual winners of the event, Old Loughtonians, which the boys were very proud of. The boys managed to make it through as runners-up in the initial group stage on the day, losing only one match, and then making it through to the last 6, an amazing result to what was always anticipated as being a day against strong opposition, but the team didn’t look out of place and the team putting in some spectacular performances that kept the crowd cheering. A thoroughly enjoyable season, and it gives me great delight to say how much I have enjoyed my time being involved in the minis, both from the early days of the U11 girls many years ago and more recently the U12 boys, and I wish Al the very best with the U12 boys for next season as the team continues to strengthen with the addition of the U10 boys.

U12 Boys – report from Nigel Cushion
“This year saw the deployment of a second U12 boys group on a Tuesday evening allowing us to give hockey to those boys who cannot make Sundays. This group regularly achieved 10 attendees, half attending the Sunday sessions as well, meaning they had twice the coaching this year. The other half the group attended only on Tuesdays, so for these boys they were able to have a year of coaching where they would have otherwise missed out. As a result of this, not only did we double the training provided, 3 new players were recruited to the club from outside including a valuable goalkeeper find! So we now enter the exciting develop year with a stronger group than we might have had. We were joined for most of the season by ex Norwich and England player Rory Preston who volunteered to help coaching on his gap year. Although, when I introduced him to the boys I must have mumbled, as many misheard and thought I had said that Rory used to play for “Ringland” (not England) – they were not as impressed as I thought they would be! Nigel Cushion. Lead Coach U12 boys Tuesdays 2010/11”

U12 Girls – report from Adrian Fennell
The U12 girls comprised around 40 strong and we had a regular attendance of at least 30 every Sunday. The A team were the strongest in the County by some measure and this was shown by them comfortably winning the Norfolk clubs championship and going through to the East round. Due to the East round being in the middle of the Easter holidays and over half the squad being abroad, the B team stepped in and, such is the depth of skill, they only just missed going through to the final play-offs.

We tried to field as many teams as possible at club tournaments, most notably 4 teams at Norwich City’s, where the A’s won, the B’s won out of the B teams and we had over 36 girls playing! The season was slightly marred by there being a dearth of tournaments from November through to February and then coming all in a rush at the end, this made match experience difficult, particularly with the challenges of so many girls on Sunday mornings and short allowance of full pitch time.

We had some excellent regular goalkeeping coaching from Tom Franks that was invaluable and an absolute necessity if we are going to encourage a good flow of young goalkeepers. From time to time we also had a ‘guest’ player from higher up in the club to help with the coaching. This was very useful as it provided a fresh look at the coaching and also gave senior club players an insight into the depth of talent that we have within the minis.

All in all, another very successful season from a large pool of talented girls.

For further information about our youth section, visit: www.norwichcityhc.co.uk/youth

Annual Club Day

Annual Club Day - Sunday 21st August 2011

Our Annual Club Day is a great way to begin the new 2011/2012 season, inviting existing members, their guests and of course anybody else who might not be with the club already but want to come along and enjoy the day (EVERYONE IS WELCOME!). We play a mixed festival throughout the day, bringing in around 100 players and spectators, all of whom can enjoy the hockey, make use of the clubhouse bar for snack and drinks and of course the all day BBQ. The date for your diary is 21st August, and nearer the time we will begin to accept registrations online via the website. Again, a fun day for all ages, minis through to veterans, and all standards very welcome, so beginners through to regular players.

Club Trials/Selection Weekend

Saturday 3rd September / Sunday 4th September 2011

Over the weekend of Saturday 3rd September and Sunday 4th September we will be running a packed set of hockey sessions to enable team captains, coaches and managers to begin to understand their teams for the forthcoming season. With all teams within the club having a successful 2010/2011 season we want to build upon these successes with another great performance during 2011/2012. The weekend will be organised nearer the time by team officials and all players will be contacted nearer the time to confirm final details and timings for matches. This is also a great weekend opportunity for potential new members to come along and meet the club and find a team that is suitable for their ability. We pride ourselves in our diversity in team standards, running 6 mens, 6 ladies, 1 veterans and 3 development teams next season (not to mention the volumes of minis) we can provide standards from the top Premier Mens league downwards, and the East Womens league downwards, teams represented in pretty much every league run within the East. This is a great weekend opportunity for existing and new members to get back into the season and challenge for those places throughout the club.

Please note, if you cannot make this weekend due to holiday commitments then this is not the end of the world, it is just an element that will help team officials for next season, if you miss this then you still have the training sessions and pre-season friendly matches to prepare for the season ahead.

Club Future Sports Hockey & Activity Camp

Moulton College, Northamptonshire – 17th Jul 2011-22nd Jul 2011
Experience all that is Futures Hockey PLUS outdoor adventure activities and some other cool stuff!

Boys & Girls aged 15-17 of any hockey standard - 5 Days - Hockey Programme - Watersports - Leadership challenges - Adventure activities - Parties - All meals and accommodation.

Other dates are also available, and some of the camps are already being attended by some of our juniors, who have been before and always keen to attend each Summer.

For more information visit: www.futuressports.com

World Class Hockey Comes to London – 12-16 July 2011

Watch England Hockey men battle with Belgium, Korea and New Zealand for the inaugural LONDON CUP in Chiswick this July.

Eight fantastic hockey matches, FunZone where kids of all ages can have a go at hockey PLUS superb hospitality events.
Come and marvel at the pace and power of international men's hockey from Tuesday 12 Saturday 16 July 2011.

Tickets from £10 for Adults, £5 for U18s. http://www.englandhockey.co.uk/thelondoncup or call 0844 499 3222

Goal Keeper Training

Book Now for Simon Mason Goalkeeper Day on Sunday 4 September 2011
Some of you may be interested in this Goalkeeping Day at Dereham on the first Sunday in September. Simon Mason is an ex-England keeper who runs these courses all over the UK and has been coming to Dereham for many years on the same date (so some of you may already know about this course – and, indeed, previously attended). He makes the day fun, interesting and very busy – you will learn loads.

For further information, and to apply, visit: http://derehamhockeyclub.co.uk

Summer Refresher sessions

We plan to run a number of sessions through the summer so that we don't forget our hockey skills and techniques for the forthcoming season. The sessions are being run on a Sunday morning and will cover sessions for our minis (U13s) and also our juniors (O13s) and adults. We are only running a number of these events, knowing that many others see the Summer as a timeout from hockey and a time for other sports to take priority. Hopefully these sessions will prove enjoyable and a chance to meet back up with hockey friends, not to mention a reminder of where the hockey kit has been hidden away from last season.

The July session is being held on Sunday 10th July at Taverham, starting with a mini session between 9.30am and 11.30am, followed by a combined junior/adult mixed session for a match between 11.30am and 1.30pm. Everybody is invited and you are very welcome to bring along family, friends and guests to hopefully enjoy the event. You can register your interest by visiting our website at www.norwichcityhc.co.uk.

Come Dine with Me... ?

We received this invitation to apply for the Channel Four Show 'Come Dine with Me'... do you dare?

The hugely successful Channel 4 show Come Dine With Me is returning for a new, day-time series. We’re looking for people over 18 years of age, in and around the NORWICH area with a passion for cooking who want to demonstrate their skills.

Over five days, five strangers, from all walks of life, take turns to host the perfect dinner party for each other. At the end of the week the most impressive host wins a £1,000 cash prize.

This is your chance to create the perfect dining experience. And YOU get to enjoy four nights dining out, with the chance of winning the grand prize!

If you or anyone you know would like to take part then please call ASAP on- 0871 244 4142 (Calls cost 10p per minute from a BT landline, mobile and other network rates may be higher) or email: cdwm@itv.com

Norwich City HC in Park at Lord Mayors Celebrations...

Norwich City Hockey Club have been invited to have a stall in Chapelfield Gardens on Saturday 9th July as part of the Lord Mayors Celebrations. So, if you are in the City on Saturday 9th July then come and say "hello", have a go at the hockey challenge and win a prize, and meet some of the familiar faces you see around the club. We are still looking for a number of volunteers for short periods of time through the day so if you can spare even half an hour or an hour then please get in touch via email (enquiries@norwichcityhc.co.uk), or speak to Sarah Anthony or Ali Wardale.

Advertising and Pitch Boards from £175...

We are looking for new companies to advertise around the pitch at Taverham, starting from £175+VAT, we will take your logo, slogan, text, images and layout guidelines and create everything for you, you just need to provide the initial information and following your approval of the design we will get it created, delivered and installed for you. If you would like to find out more about advertising opportunities and how you could help with our fund raising projects then please visit http://www.norwichcityhc.co.uk/advertising or email us at advertising@norwichcityhc.co.uk

Keep in touch...

Keep in touch with everything going on within your hockey club by visiting and linking to us via Facebook and Twitter. Our website is always being updated with latest news and information and we will be publishing snippets of information through Facebook and Twitter to try and keep you all informed.

http://facebook.com/NorwichCityHC

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