Christ Church Primary School are one of the schools local to SHC which we have used as our coaching outreach (formally suburban hockey) to develop sport within the school. We are currently in our 5th year coaching at the school. We coach 2 weekly before school clubs from Sept through to July and then every class in the school gets 6 x 1 hour curriculum sessions across the year. Following this approx 80 kids have started attending local hockey clubs within the area. Christchurch have won the Kingston Borough Primary School Quicksticks tournament for the last few years and this year we entered them into the Surrey/London Cup where they would compete against some of the top hockey schools in England including many private prep schools.
They train at the school on a piece of astroturf which is less than ¼ of a normal hockey pitch and having previously only played in one 7-aside fixture, the team headed to the Surrey-London Cup on Tuesday the 7th of March. Below is the report by captain Natalie Barnicoat.
“We had an early start at school and were very excited. When we arrived we were a bit nervous. Our pool looked tough with 5 other schools including St Georges who we knew have a very good team. We started playing our first game and scored early which was good for us as it gave us more confidence. We really started playing well together. Flavia made some amazing saves in goal. Cara and Orla made some incredible tackles and clever passes so we could counter attack. Abi, Gaby and Holly worked super hard in attack and defence always fighting for the ball and their attacking runs lead us to scoring lots of goals. We had Tegan up front who was always pressuring the defence and finishing lots of moves and she was our top goal scorer! We won our first match, then our second and before we knew it we were playing St Georges to see who would be top of the pool and win the gold medals. We had the push back and as soon as the whistle blew we were determined to score. We scored an early goal. We were 1 nil up against last year’s champions! Now all we had to do was defend. It felt like a year but we defended as well as we could and stopped them from scoring and put some pressure on them at their goal. When the whistle blew we were so overjoyed and hugged each other. We had qualified for the regional competition!”
This is the first time that a state school has been crowned Surrey-London U11 Girls Champions. The following day Christchurch retained their Kingston Borough Quicksticks title, before heading to the U11 South Finals on Thursday. With below the report again from Natalie Barnicoat
“2 days later we were back at the same place for the South Region competition. We had pool matches and then the winners and runners up would play the semi-finals and finals. We won our first match and then the second and the third until we had to play Danes Hill to decide who would be first and second in our pool. Like us Danes Hill had won all their matches. It was going to be tough. They had a lot of good players who are our friends from Surbiton Hockey Club. The match ended one all so first place was decided on goal difference. We were all nervous waiting to hear who was first. Luckily, we had scored lots of goals so were given first place in the pool. Now we played Holy Cross in the semi-final. They were a good team but we came out on top 2-1. We were in the finals against …..St Georges!
We played our very best, but St Georges scored a great penalty corner in the first half. We came back in the second half and also scored from a penalty corner. Then we had another penalty corner but the shot went wide! We had chances but just couldn’t get the ball in the goal and then St Georges scored a break-away goal. Well done to St Georges who won 2-1. We still came second which was a great achievement and we were so happy.
Everyone in the team did an amazing job, especially our coaches Mrs Tait and Frankie Bryant.”
What an achievement for the School and the girls who have worked so hard to get this position. Shout out to Teagan for scoring a ridiculous amount of goals, Cara and Orla for being dominant in defense, Abbie, Holly and Gabby for tireless work in midfield, Flavia for conceded only 5 goals in 13 games and Natalie for leading the team exceptionally over the 2 days.
Our mission at SHC Community has never been about winning titles, but providing hockey to the wider community and providing children with a positive sporting experience which will hopefully inspire them and motivate them going forward. Hopefully we are heading in the right direction
