What a Season!

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Want to have your say - and some hockey?

On Sunday, 22 May the Club will be holding a summer end-of-season celebration and the AGM. The day will start at 11am with a couple of games, followed by a BBQ and the AGM. After the AGM is finished, there will be a couple more games, finished by a few beverages in the clubhouse. Anyone who wants to play on the day is encouraged to sign up on the club website although everyone is welcome to come along and enjoy the day.

The Season that Was...

Some of you may have been forgiven for thinking there was just one team in Norwich chasing promotion - however the hockey club showed the footballers the way!

The ladies 1s took the starring role, securing the East Division 2NE title by a 10 point margin, having finally clinched promotion with a 3-0 victory against Great Yarmouth with two games still to play. They will look forward to their return to East Division 1N next year, albeit without player-of-the-season Hannah Phillips who will be off to university next year. However, with a number of young players making strong debuts towards the end of the season (as well as a few of the oldies showing them the way!), the future is looking good.

The Men's 1s had spent most of the previous season battling against relegation - but showed a dramatic turnaround to secure promotion to East Premier A for the first time in recent history. A fierce battle was raged for much of the season over the team's highest scorer, with Charlie Horn narrowly taking the honours ahead of drag-flick "specialist" - and captain - Chris Perry, but it was defender Alex Scott who was named man of the season.

But it wasn't just a tale of those at the top, with both mens and ladies 4th teams securing promotion; whilst the ladies 4's had secured their league title with some way to go, the men's equivalent had to wait until results were confirmed on the final day to confirm their goal difference was sufficient to earn promotion. Although both mens 2nd and 3rd teams went into the final weeks of the season with chances of promotion, it was not quite to be, with both teams finishing 3rd in their league.
Honours also go to the club's development teams. With most of the previous year's girls development players having moved up into the senior club, hopes were not high of repeating the previous team's success, however the new group of girls quickly put any fears to one side, leading the league for the entire season. With the majority of the squad still U13 at the start of next season, they will be looking forward to building on this success next year. The boys development league was new for this year and performed very creditably to finish second in the league.

One of the Masters?

The Club's annual golf day will be held on Friday, 15 July at Barnham Broom Golf Club. This is a bit of a bargain at £55, in that it includes an 18 hole individual competition, 18 hole team competition and breakfast, lunch and dinner - but places are going fast so sign up quickly... Click here for more details!

City youngsters showing the way

It's been a great season for the Norwich City youth teams.

We reported in the last newsletter that both girls and boys U16 teams were progressing in their respective competitions. Although the Girls were sadly knocked out at the last 16 stage, coming up against a very strong team, the boys U16 reached finals day of the plate competition. They put in a very creditable performance to lose in the semi-final in Manchester to Bromley and Beckenham 2-0 (their opponents went on to win a close final on penalty strokes 5-0!) - despite many having turned up on the morning through a combination of proms and the club dinner dance being the night before!

Our U10 and U12 teams have put in some pretty phenomenal performances this season. The U10 boys have probably had the most success; having picked up numerous tournament wins on the way to dominating the Norfolk Championships, they entered the East finals in high hopes. They continued their fine run of form right up until the final game, where they were somewhat shellshocked to concede two goals in the opening forays; despite dominating the rest of the game, they couldn't quite convert their pressure and ended up as runners up.

The U12 girls also entered the East finals with a strong chance having again won the Norfolk competition. Unfortunately, a number of players were unavailable on the day which gave others the chance to shine; they missed making it to the final stages of the competition through unfortunately conceding a goal in the dying moments of what proved to be their final game.

The U12 boys had initially missed East Qualification, having finished 3rd in the County round. However, they capitalised on a short-notice invitation to the East finals, and put in a strong performance in the initial stages, winning 3 of their 4 games, losing only to the finalists Old Loughts (after going ahead 2-0),thus making it through to the last six in the East, along with fellow Norfolk sides Harleston and Pelicans (showing the strength of our Norfolk youth setup). Unfortunately they came up against strong opposition in their second group, and finished a long and hot day having achieved so much more than was anticipated.

Combined with our performance in the Norfolk Development Leagues this season, the future is certainly looking good!

Oh what a night!

A big thankyou to the 150+ of you that turned up for the end of season Dinner Dance at Caister Hall. I'm sure all would agree this was a fantastic evening, brilliantly organised by Karren Dagless.

Second Pitch Update

We are still working hard to raise money for the second pitch (and some of you who were playing at Taverham at the end of season will be aware of the urgent need to resurface the current pitch, which also forms part of the project).

The team in charge of fundraising - including Tim Aldous and Bill Anthony, have worked hard to investigate all sources of funding and take up as many opportunities as possible. However, we need as many people as possible to continue to help us - as they say, every little helps, from coming to club fundraising events to buying advertising boards. On this theme, if you do know anyone who would be interested in buying a board, or more general sponsorship opportunities, please let us know!

And finally, we must say a big thank you to a number of the club Vice-Presidents who have generously given money over the past few months to support our efforts in fundraising. Your contributions are received with much appreciation.

A big thank you!

Finally, we can't end without a big thanks to all those that have made this season possible. To all our coaches, our umpires, the parents and all of you that help pull the strings, we are enormously grateful.

Find out more information by visiting the club website.

This copy of our email update was sent to [email address suppressed]