Today is one of my favourite games of the year writes Hockey Mentors Founder Jack Childs- our girls 1st XI love the opportunity to step onto the Olympic pitch where our England/GB teams play and be watched by hundreds of people.

We are playing one of the top private schools in the country Haileybury, who finished 3rd nationally last season in what promises to be an exciting game. Yet this is not a private school vs private school match. It is a private school against a team made up of some of the best state school and ethnic minority players in the country.

Our team is drawn from all over the country for this unique fixture. We have girls from Bristol, Southampton, Manchester, London and even Cornwell in the team. The commitment of the players and parents for such an opportunity is staggering and shows the demand that is out there from our demographic. Most exciting is the fact of how young our team is for this level. In our 16 player squad we have 4 U14s playing, 4 U16s playing and only 8 players who are actually U18. It just shows the young talent that is there all around the country and we will be competitive with what is a top school programme led by an outstanding coach.

The concept of how this works raises questions for lots of people. The most common are: How do you pick the teams? How do you train the team? How do they get time off school? I will answer each one 😊

We pick the overall squads from last year’s programme and new players who join this year’s programmes. We have around 300 active players on our training programmes, so there is lots of competition for places in each age group (U14s/U16s/1st XI). The player base has built over the years- at the start it was really hard work to get out teams. At the start of the season we send out all fixtures and pick the players for all the games- normally around 10 games per team. No player will play in all the games and hence squad sizes per team are normally around 40 players. This creates a flexible domestic programme that can meet a wide variety of individual needs and circumstances.

The simple answer to training is we don’t train the teams. The level of our results seemingly then surprises people but I believe with strong culture, good coaching and frankly lots of great talented players they start to become more understandable. In our squad this evening we have a player who was in the England U16s squad last season and I am sure some of the younger ones will make that level too. This is supported by strong depth where nearly all the players are playing regional level. There are lots of players unavailable because of resting for England U16 trials or club fixtures this weekend. The focus of Hockey Mentors is not grassroots- it is progressing players already showing promise in the talent system to higher levels.

Finally the slightly awkward one- how do they get time off school? Well the simple answer is a letter to school from Hockey Mentors and most importantly buy in from the school that this will not only help the players hockey development but also their wider development as a person. The Hockey Mentors games are unique. You develop the personal skills to interact with children from all over the country, you learn to perform at a high level without the normal training/preparation and in the game tonight the children get to play in front of hundreds of people which is very rare in hockey.

Innovation

Having played around 150 private school fixtures over the last 5 years I am curious whether insights from this could be shared to benefit hockey and even other sports. Note most of the games happen at the private schools themselves (including whole day experiences), with the game tonight one of the few that is at a neutral location.

From my vantage point there are two ways you could innovate this concept- my outlook is it always be open to sharing if it could help young players in sport who might not have as much access as others…

-I am curious whether England Hockey could expand + own this concept nationally with tweaks for the benefit of many more state school players. It is unfair to comment on whether England Hockey should be doing it or not as they might have better ideas and I don’t fully know the constraints they are operating under.

-I am curious whether this concept could be applied to other sports that are traditionally more dominated by private schools. I am thinking Rugby/Cricket in particular but there may be more (and apologies if there are already similar things- I only know how hockey works).

The Start of The Season

Tonight marks the start of the private school games programme for Hockey Mentors. We will play around 50 games this season (including tournament fixtures), giving 150+ players from state schools and/or ethnic minorities the opportunity to improve their hockey. I am excited for tonight and the season ahead 😊