Back to Hockey, Part 3
I hope everyone is safe and well.
If all goes to plan, following recent Government and England Hockey announcements, from next week (29 March) we will be allowed to resume hockey training and some local friendly matches. Unlike the end of last year, local tier restrictions are not expected, so players living within a reasonable distance of their clubs will be able to play. We expect return to play will be in line with the Step 4 guidelines we followed last year (see EH website for more details) and a big thanks to Hannah for stepping up as our Covid officer again.
Training Dates
We expect more guidance to be released next week, but in the meantime juniors training will resume on Tuesday 30 March 5-6pm at Raynes Park HS and on Saturdays from 10 April at Hatfeild School, Morden. For seniors, we have a club training session booked for Friday 9 April, 8pm – 10pm at Raynes Park HS (contact your captains for details). At the moment, we’re unable to use KCS or Blenheim, so thanks to our friends at Wimbledon HC for letting us use their pitch. We also plan to run some ‘back to hockey’ sessions over the summer for beginners/returners as we have had a number of enquiries from new players, so please spread the word.
League Re-starts
Hopefully, women’s and men’s leagues will then re-start on 17 April, with the aim to complete a half season by the end of May. Captains will be in touch regarding availability once we have the green light and we will also try to arrange some friendlies before then.
Next Season
Thanks to everyone who responded to the various surveys about the new league structures next season. The upshot is that we’ve requested that the Ladies 1s & 2s, Mens 1s & 3s (Boars) enter the new London area, whilst the Mens 2s enter the new South East structure. Standings at the end of this (half) season will probably have no bearing, so we wait to see where our teams are placed.
New Pitch
As you know, the club would love to have a more permanent home in Merton and we have been working with the Council on a proposed new pitch at Morden Rec. We are now at the stage of submitting a planning application and securing funding and we have set up a new entity ‘Merton Community Sports Association’ to take things forward. More details are on the website here and we would also like to test the water regarding a community share offer, so it would be really helpful of you could complete a short survey here, even if you don’t think you’d be interested.
Summer Hockey
We’ve been invited to join summer leagues at Epsom (men), Surbiton (women 7-a-side) and OCs (both/mixed) from May/June. It would be good to get some volunteers to help co-ordinators teams to give our winter captains a break, so please let your captain know if you’re either interested in playing and/or can help organise teams.
Need a New Stick?
The club has been offered a significant (50%) discount on new sticks from the Hockey Centre. We would like to offer this to anyone who works for the NHS or who is a teacher in the first instance and then will open it up to others, so please let Stoney (Mens 1s captain) know via your captain if you’re interested.
Golf Day
Seeing as all the golf courses are now in pristine condition, we thought we better do something about that, so are proposing a golf day on Friday 21 May. Likely to cost around £50 for golf + food at either Coombe Wood or Wimbledon Common GC, let chris.walker1@runbox.com know if you’re interested.
