Wakefield Nominated for EuroHockey Club of the Year
Wakefield HC is pleased to announce it has been nominated along with four other English clubs for the prize of EuroHockey Club of the Year. Wakefield has been praised for its efforts in securing funding for the new facilities at College Grove and its work recruiting new volunteers to enable growth within the club. Wakefield is nominated alongside Beeston, Surbiton, Aldreley Edge and Old Silhillians.
England Hockey Press Release
Top Clubs Nominated to Eurohockey Club of The Year
Alderley Edge, Beeston, Old Silhillians, Surbiton and Wakefield have been entered to compete against the best clubs in Europe early in 2012 in an attempt to retrieve the coveted "Eurohockey Club of the Year" award.
2008 saw City of York HC awarded a Merit for developing hockey in York with very limited facilities, and now these clubs hope to recapture the interest of the EHF.
Club hockey in England is continuing to develop and many clubs are working incredibly hard to offer hockey to their local communities and beyond. Here is a glimpse of what makes these five clubs special.
Alderley Edge
- EHB Club of the Year, sponsored by Harvester, awarded Club of the Year at The London Cup, July 2011
- Secured a huge amount of funding through some great creative thinking to build a pitch for themselves and their community
Beeston
- The growth of hockey at this club has been amazing, due to:
- Invested time and resource into junior programmes to make them one of the most sucessful on field clubs in the country across age groups
- Working hard to secure funding to upgrade their facilities
Old Silhillians
- A real community club, offering their members and beyond a warm, welcoming and friendly environment to play and socialise.
- A large amount of development including recognising the needs of members, planning facility upgrades and builds to install a creche to enable more women to play
- Running the Back to Hockey programme to encourage females to get back into the sport
Surbiton
- An inspirational club, the first in England to have over 1,000 playing members
- They work to two key principles, Every Player Matters, and Offer Value for Money
Wakefield
- Recognising, and working on recruiting more volunteers into their club in order to support their growth
- Securing funding to install additional facilities to continue to grow hockey in Wakefield
Alex Teasdale, National Manager Clubs and Facilities said
"We are immensly proud to be able to make such high quality endorsements to the EHF. We have been woring hard with all five clubs over recent years, and they themselves have been working hard for many more years to get to this point.
I was reading the applications before submission, and I can't explain how proud I am that we have such wonderful people making our sport happen.
English Hockey clubs can be fantastic to be part of, and I am very pleased to be able to nominate these clubs to compete in Europe"
EHB would like to wish all five clubs the very best of luck for the awards in 2012.
THE CRITERIA TO GAIN EUROHOCKEY CLUB OF THE YEAR AWARD
The club/s that you nominate MUST show the following:
-
Good player membership growth during 2011
-
Regular training for the club coaches/umpires to ensure their knowledge is kept up to date. We would expect club coaches/umpires to attend 1 national/regional seminar per year.
-
Regular competition for all age group players during the hockey season. We would expect all age groups to play competitions or festivals.
-
Strong links with local schools/other organizations. We would expect the club to link with at least 2 local schools to ensure new young players are introduced to hockey.
-
How they value their volunteers. We would expect to see details of how the club value their volunteers and say “thank you” to all their unpaid helpers.
-
A plan for the future. We would expect to see a 2/3 year development plan to show what targets the club has set itself.
-
Promotion of EHF Values of respect and fair play from Club Board members to players through awareness campaigns and developing club’s core-value system.
-
Success in bringing sponsorships/partnerships to support Club activities.
There are also some criteria that we would like to see but that are not as crucial as those listed above.
-
The club stages festivals for youth/seniors/veterans.
-
The club has survived and sustained hockey in a town in spite of poor facilities and resources.
-
The club has done something “special” for hockey in the area.
-
The club has promoted itself through a marketing plan which includes a Club website.
