Believe it or not it is just 4 years since we received our amazing grant from Sport England to start the ladies team and further develop the junior section.

In that time we’ve run Back to Hockey sessions, joined the ladies league, won the league, been nominated for Team of the Year (and deserved to win), started a 2nd ladies team and now as we move into 2019/20 we are starting our 3rd ladies team.

For people who have joined us recently and see where we are it would be easy to think “it has always been like this”. The reality is that it has relied lots of people putting in lots of effort and each year brings new challenges. We need to respond to the developments of the previous season and do our best to move forward again – improving our hockey and most importantly providing an environment where everyone gets to enjoy themselves.

2 seasons ago, with a new 2nd team we saw a big gap between the 1st and the 2nd team. Just as with the mens teams we know that to have a strong 1st team we need a strong 2nd team and so we put a lot of effort in to closing the gap. It is fair to say that we had mixed results. The 2s certainly improved dramatically and had a great season, the 1s, on the other hand felt like they didn’t really progress. So what does this mean for 2019/20?

There are lots of things for us to balance and many constraints we have to deal with. Numbers of players, lights, pitch space, pitch time, coaching all have an impact. We’d love to be able to wave a magic wand and fix everything but in reality we have to be pragmatic and ensure that we move forward as a whole, step by step, season by season.

We are excited about this season and believe it should really see us push on. The pitch is being redressed and the lights are being repaired and should point at the pitch :-). We are pushing hard for a full pitch on a Thursday night training but can’t promise that just yet.

Since 2015 we have had a team competing in the 1st level of the Derbyshire ladies league. Like us, several clubs are taking advantage of playing friendlies in this league this year, giving people who are newer to the game or who are keener on playing than moving up through the leagues the opportunity to really enjoy themselves on a Saturday. We think it is really important that we provide this opportunity and that is the purpose of our 3rd team…. Effectively where our 1st team was 4 years ago.

Having more players means we now have the opportunity to really push the 1s & 2s to develop with the objective of both teams finishing strongly in their respective leagues. This will mean increasing the intensity at training, hopefully some coaching support on a Saturday, taking 13 players for each team on a Saturday and actively moving players between all 3 teams based on ability and the desire to play and train.

To get to this point has required a lot of effort from players, captains, coaches, umpires, supporters and many other people behind the scenes. To make our objectives for this year a reality will require more effort and we need your help in this. Our first priority is having someone (or a group of people) who can make sure we have a team out for the 3s. Ideally we have a captain selected for the season but if not this responsibility can be shared. We will also need people to move between teams and help out where they can, maybe sometimes playing a 2nd game when numbers are tight.

If we can do this then we should be able to provide midweek and weekend hockey that people can really enjoy, at their level across 3 teams. Not a bad place to be after just 4 years!