B2H: Exciting Things We Have Planned for the New Year & Beyond

Christmas is only two weeks away and we have done so much already with only one session cancelled due to a frozen pitch. So far this season we have had great fun enjoying our hockey as follows:

• Monday Training sessions: 14
• Saturday Game Play sessions: 9
• Will’s Workouts: 5
• B2H Classic Cap purchases: 5
• Player Of the Month awards: 3
• 7s Tournaments: 2
• Winter 11s Series matches: 2
• Winter 11s Series training: 1
• Après Hockey parties: 1

The New Year now beckons and we have more of the above to offer.

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The word is spreading amongst local clubs about our B2H position, now probably being the strongest in terms of numbers (70) and skill levels in English hockey, in that we are receiving more enquires for requests to arrange training sessions and matches from other club’s development teams. Recently having played Tulse Hill & Dulwich M8s and winning 2-0, as well as a match against The London Royals bottom league side last season where we also won 1-0, and winning the SHC Summer Lower League (final 7-3) shows that we can provide quality opposition even against lower league club sides.

B2H Winter 11s Series Training Over the Winter: Having been allocated the M1s winter Pitch 1 training slot while they pursue their indoor activities, we have started to introduce our members to the full pitch game in preparation for transferring to the leagues, as is our main objective. Primarily a 7s training group using Pitch 3, our development plan for season 24/25 is to grow our 11s development via these training sessions together with a larger number of internal and external matches than we have entertained before. With group numbers now well into the 70s, and still expanding, we are able to select two full squads of 13 most of the time and use these internal games to help players who are new-to-hockey this year coupled with long time experienced players who have joined this season and need to learn the game structure that SHC employs for when integrating into league sides.

This has been possible by the support of the Coaching Director and his team and they have now become a major contributor to B2H development as we move forward towards Christmas and beyond. After our recent Thursday session, with coach Dan Wadsworth, we were treated to a Pizza supper by Taz and his team with the collective 16 players match fees covering the costs of all aspects of the event. We have two more 11s training session to go and a further four Winter 11s Series matches, either internal or against local clubs, to arrange which should enable us to introduce more of our members to the modern way of playing full pitch hockey. The feedback from our members, who have already taken part in our first two matches, has been very positive and is a certain winner in terms of enjoyment. 

There are now five of our Monthly 7s tournaments left, featuring our B2H teams the Griffins, Dragons, and Sirins (all bird names taken from Greek mythology) - these involve 64% of members including a few guests to ensure full squads each time. We invite a local club to attend to make a four-team tournament but this is getting increasingly difficult to achieve as local clubs seem to have dwindling B2H groups.

The Player of the Month (POM) awards will continue throughout the season with the Monday coaches of Nick and Max nominating a player each time from their respective training groups. Prizes are either a beanie hat (for the colder months) or coffee mug (for the warmer months), both displaying the B2H logo and “Player Of the Month”.

Some Saturday Game Play (GP) starts with an earlier session for either a Women’s Summer League team training or a mixed side for general 7s game play against appropriate visiting oppositions. After this earlier session our normal internal GP session takes place.

We potentially have two visits abroad to France and The Netherlands over weekends to partake in either a festival at Le Touquet in France and / or a dual 7s match in Holland at a club local to the EHL KO8 finals where on the Sunday afternoon we hope to support our M1 and W1 teams taking part.

Towards the end of our B2H season (which continues into July) we have the SHC Summer League where we will enter a Men’s team again and hope to enter a Women’s team as well if we can prepare well enough as the Women’s league is unlike the Men’s where the Men’s is split into a higher and lower tournament. The Women’s is just one tournament and includes teams from leagues up the W5s, which is really too high a level for B2H to compete anywhere on even terms. However, last year’s B2H playing performance was very sound so we will aim again for performance rather than the overall table position.

The year concludes with our End Of Season 7s round robin internal tournament where we hope all members will take part and play for a winner’s medal.

A B2H summer ‘Club 151^st’ 7s Invitational Charity Tournament, for all the family to attend, with a BBQ lunch and maybe a Junior’s tournament interweaved, is considered as the highlight of the Summer term.

Although we having an increasing membership which enables us to organise more activities, we are still looking for more members to join the B2H family of enthusiastic hockey players and have lots of fun where you can make sporting friends and get out and about twice a week in a safe and controlled environment that is well organised and dedicated to what you want as a player. Contact Roger at backtohockey@surbitonhc.com.