A lot of Hockey Mentors (HM) results don’t make sense writes founder Jack Childs. It defies belief for most people that a team of state school and/or ethnic minority players that don’t train together have been able to beat all the top private schools in England, win 60+ medals in national Indoor Hockey UK events, beat all the top clubs and even win high-level international tournaments.

I believe there are three critical factors to this: culture, high-quality players and quality coaching.

To bring it more to life and help the hockey stick spin around I will take a look at how this has shaped up for the World Youth Festival. This is the official junior event linked to the Hockey World Cup, where our 4 teams (U16 girls, U16 boys, U18 girls, U18 boys) will compete against top Dutch clubs, top private South African schools, the USA girls national teams, a top English Club and a top German club in a 3-day tournament. Exciting times.

Culture

This is actually the most important thing. The challenge when you have players from all around the country is that they will all bring different cultural norms with them into your environment, so your culture needs to be super strong to override this and set the tone for the benefit of all.

We emphasise three key things in HM. Firstly it is all about the hockey- we don’t do politics, we don’t do parental interference, we don’t do drama, we don’t do manipulation and we select on meritocracy (nothing else). This might not sound revolutionary but I genuinely believe I have only ever seen one other hockey environment in England that generally works like this.

Secondly we emphasis support for each other. The one advantage we have here is the players are connected by something deeper. They are all here to improve their hockey and generally speaking they are more likely to be outsiders in their local environment. Combined with it being a national programme where most players won’t know each other, this naturally leads to less of a clique culture in HM. The biggest thing I have noticed is in the girls. I would say generally in English hockey top-level junior girls compete against each other; in HM they support each other and celebrate each other’s success. This makes the feeling and atmosphere very different.

Lastly we are high challenge, high support. Most junior players from our demographic are not challenged in their local environments, especially talented ones. We push them hard. This push has to be complimented by high support to get the most out of a young player and person; getting to know them individually, being fair, seeing positives/potential and keeping fun at the centre.

In the context of the World Youth Festival the additional challenge is with 4 teams it makes it much harder for me to be totally on top of culture. This is where selecting the right coaches and managers is essential. You need managers who have bought in fully to the HM culture for their child and you need coaches who will naturally bring what you want in how they conduct themselves.

In addition you need the right leadership group in the teams. We select 3 captains per team and I conducted a 45 mins zoom call the week before the tournament to explore different cultural aspects all geared around how they could optimally support their peers, coach and manager. All of these captains have deep experience of HM, including our training programmes and competing on international tours.

With the demanding nature of this tour I was also conscious of brining in extra mindset support for the players. In Lucy Holder we have an ex England U21s international and trained sports psychologist who will conduct additional cultural meetings for all teams and be available for 1-1 sessions with players throughout the tournament. In addition we have a peer to peer mentoring scheme where each player in the U16s team has a mentor from the U18s teams, with 5 players per gender from the U18s teams chosen for this role.

High-Quality Players

We all love to miss the obvious when getting exceptional results don’t we. I still maintain culture is the most important driver as it gets the most out of the talent you have and attracts top junior players to want to play for HM but obviously you need really good players as well. And we have lots of the best state school and/or ethnic minority players in England and some brilliant alumni competing for us in the World Youth Festival. To bring this to life these are the number of players in our squads of 17 for each team who have played for England junior teams or had/have upcoming trials for them…

U16 Girls- 6 junior internationals players/trialists

U16 Boys- 7 junior internationals players/trialists

U18 Girls- 9 junior internationals players/trialists

U18 Boys- 12 junior internationals players/trialists

All players must have a history of playing with HM before they are considered for international tours- the odd case might have only been with us for a few months but the majority have been with us for years. For example in both U18 girls and U18 boys teams there are multiple players who have been with us since U14s, with some even starting as U12s. I would also add I see players in teams who are not on the international hockey radar yet but are actually amongst the most high-potential players- as a wise ex Olympic coach who works with us says ‘you never really know when they are 14-16 who will turn out to be the best one’.

Quality Coaching

Quality coaching is what brings it all together and is the final piece in the jigsaw once you have the foundation of culture and high-quality players in place. Two things massively helped me on my coaching journey in the last four years where I have got miles better at coaching juniors.

Firstly I was lucky enough to coach at Surbiton HC for two years, the best club at coaching juniors in the country in my opinion. I quickly learnt at Surbiton I was nowhere near as good as I thought I was- it was where I learnt to actually coach technically properly, understand tactics on a much deeper level and learnt how to make things simple.

The second thing that has massively helped is working alongside many brilliant coaches in Hockey Mentors. I have worked with an ex Olympic coach, the Head of Women’s and Men’s performance at Loughborough University, the current GB Men’s Head Coach, two National Prem winning coaches, and a range of other coaches who have coached internationally/in National League. It’s the most pure and accelerated coach development you can get in my experience.

When the foundation of becoming a better coach is combined with the niche experience of coaching at hundreds of HM domestic/international events, you suddenly get really good in these environments.

BUT MY EXPERTISE ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. YOU NEED HIGH-QUALITY COACHES.

One thing I have had to learn is how to let go and trust other coaches to run something that has taken so much of my time, effort and energy to build. It is not that easy. Even in a recent international comp I felt I got too involved in trying to help a coach and in advance of the World Youth Festival I had reflect on this to ensure we empowered coaches to be the best they could be. I would coach the U16 girls and we would have a coach for each of the other teams.

How we work it as follows. I select the squads and will put players into initial positions, which each coach can then tweak as the tournament unfolds. Before the tournament I will brief each coach in depth about every individual in their team as well as the overall team’s strengths/weaknesses to give them the best platform possible. It is seriously not easy. For the U16 boys, U18 girls and U18 boys they are entering a top level junior international tournament with coaches who really don’t know them at all- trust and understanding has to be built quickly both ways, which is again why the cultural foundation is even more important in this context.

For the World Youth festival we did some extra prep. Normally we would just do an online zoom call but due to the level and prestige of the tournament, we also did a training session with each team before it to help a little.

We were fortunate to get some brilliant coaches on board too. The U16 boys have Alex Williams, who is a professional hockey player in Belgium and also coaches his top Belgium clubs U19 boys. The U18 girls have Olly Keenan, the Director of Hockey at Clifton College who won the 1st XI girls schools national title this season. The U18 boys have Chris White, Director of Hockey at the University of Bristol. As well as being fantastic coaches and people, what also helps is Alex has been involved as a coach/mentor with HM nearly since the start and both Olly/Chris have coached with us on international tours before. Hence they have much more of a feel for HM, which really helps in the intensity and challenge of a fast-paced international tournament where you have to coach 6 games.

At the tournament it is over to the Head Coaches to lead their teams. My energy needs to be focused on the U16 girls and making sure the overall tour is running smoothly. I will formally have a quick catch up with each coach and each manager at the end of each day to check in but the running of the teams during the tour is on them. I only get involved in the other teams if there is a cultural issue, as it is much easier for me to speak to a player as the founder who has known most of them for years.

I hope this has given an insight into how HM teams have been so successful over the last 5 years and into how we prepare for international tournaments given the constraints we are working with. Ultimately it all goes back to culture, high-quality players and quality coaching; with all three in place you have a chance to be competitive.