Juniors 2 of 8

2. Opening Notices for 2023-24 Season


Welcome!
Welcome to the new season! We are really pleased to be back again, offering hockey to our young players and having some fun along the way.

We have some great new additions to our club this year along with the high quality coaches we offer to juniors.

Coaching Team
Our coaching team is, once again, truly outstanding - and a line up that few junior clubs can match. What is most impressive is not only the skill and knowledge that this team brings, but their desire to ensure the game is fun and enjoyable and brings out the best in our young players.

Juan Gomez
Juan will be back with BromBecks for the coming season both as a 1st XI player and in a wider remit as Club Development Coach. As a qualified FIH Hockey level 3 coach (FIH is the FIFA of Hockey). Juan has previously played in the Spanish Honor Division, as well as in the top league in Buenos Aires, his native homeland. Juan's coaching roles with us will be split amongst junior and senior commitments, where he will lead the Boys and Girls Academy and overseeing the integration of Juniors into the senior teams.

Ben Georgel
Ben returns to Brombecks as a 1st XI player and lead coach to boys U16s and U18 groups. Having finished his coaching degree at Nottingham he brings a wealth of knowledge to these groups. As a previous member of the Junior club his understands the club and will be a welcome addition to our team.

There are also a host of other coaches with huge coaching and playing experience - many have played National League Hockey, and so we can look forward to great coaching for the kids.

Volunteers
As always we are looking for some help from the parents. The club is run by volunteers and any help, however small, is really appreciated. We are especially looking for group/team administrators (no specific hockey experience is needed) this would help enormously. Without these we will struggle to run matches and training sessions.

All the leagues and matches are arranged - so it is not a difficult or time consuming activity.

There are discounts available for taking up some roles - so please take a look at the Membership sheet. If you want some more information from a parent who has done this before - please let me know and I can put you in touch with someone, so you can understand what is involved. It’s pretty simple and these are administrative roles - so no hockey experience required!

What about helping by posting updates from matches on social media, or writing a match report (only a few lines). There are many ways to help, some of them fairly simple.

So please - if you think you might be able to help a little please let me know juniors@brombeckshockey.com or speak to your group coach after a session.

Any help is most welcome!

Season Dates
The dates for the season are available here:

Training Sessions
We have made some changes to the structure of the training groups this year with the following structure in place. This can be found here.

England Hockey - Changes to the Structure
Many of you may not be aware - but England Hockey (our governing body) have undertaken a significant reform of the governance structures of the game - and this has ramifications for the club. The first is that they have changed the “boundaries” and we now fall into London as opposed to the South East (which is parts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex). The intention is to make hockey more local and reduce travelling times - which we would all welcome. They have also changed the “player pathway” - so that our players will no longer feed into Kent, but now into London. Some “county hockey” will remain, but the Performance centres are being withdrawn. There remain a lot of challenges with this as the new “pathway” is unclear and we have been working with the London organisation over the last year to help make sense of this. I will explain more to anyone who would like to know.

Contacts
If you have any queries about the group please feel free to drop the coaching team an email.

Group Contacts

  • admin@brombeckshockey.com - for any enquiries
  • u6hockey@brombeckshockey.com
  • under8mixed@brombeckshockey.com
  • under10mixed@brombeckshockey.com
  • under12boys@brombeckshockey.com
  • under12girls@brombeckshockey.com
  • under14boys@brombeckshockey.com
  • under14girls@brombeckshockey.com
  • under16boys@brombeckshockey.com
  • under16girls@brombeckshockey.com
  • under18boys@brombeckshockey.com
  • under18girls@brombeckshockey.com

One to One Coaching Sessions
The club is again offering one to one training sessions to any club member. These will be with one of our elite coaches (either Juan or Ben) and represent a great opportunity to really improve those skills with some dedicated pitch time. There will be a cost to the sessions , but if you are interested please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at coaching@brombeckshockey.com.

Elite Development - Academy (Boys & Girls)
We will once again be offering a development group that will train midweek. This is by invitation and will be coached by Juan Gomez and Ben Georgel. An excellent opportunity for the boys and girls to get first rate coaching from a high quality coach. This will be run on a 10 week basis 3 times across the season. We will be looking to start this from October and run through to Dec. Selections and invitations will be done in early October.

Specialist Session - Goalkeeping
Our very popular goalkeeper sessions will be running once more this year. The numbers for these sessions are limited, but if you are a GK and are interested - please contact admin@brombeckshockey.com. These have proved hugely successful and popular in the past 2 years.

Specialist Sessions - Drag Flicking
We are really pleased to be able to offer some specialist drag flicking sessions from Juan. These will be run ad-hoc depending on demand. Please contact coaching@brombeckshockey.com for details.

Indoor Hockey
This year we will also be trying to continue our Indoor hockey offering. Many of the groups got a taster last year and we are keen to run this again (but we have yet to plan the programme in detail). This will be charged at an additional cost - as the indoor hall has to be hired, and the sessions will be led by Tom Hamilton.

Subscriptions
Although inflation has been high - we are seeking to maintain our membership costs this year. I trust that you will still consider us good value for money. All payments must be made electronically through our club site (we are no longer accepting cash or cheques) - all the joining details can be found here https://www.brombeckshockey.com/payments

Kit
As you may be aware our kit is now provided online by our kit partner - Hawkinsport. For the minis - u8, u10, u12 we have a range of significantly cheaper kit available as we know that these age groups grow so fast! All the kit can be found and purchased on a dedicated portal here: https://www.hawkinsport.co.uk/clubs/hockey-clubs/bromley-and-beckenham-hockey-club. It will be delivered directly to your home address. Please look out for the other training kit as well.

Feedback
We are also looking to hold a meeting for all parents to hear what we are doing and where we are going. The intention is to hold this in September at some point - and it will be online. So please keep an eye out for that invite.

Katharine Hayward
Katharine has taken on the mantel of DBS administrator for us. She will be in touch to help all of our team through the process. Every coach in the junior section have to have a background check - so this is an important activity for us.

Welfare & Safeguarding
I'm really pleased that Brendan Kearns and Jo Colby will be continuing to provide the Safeguarding role for the junior club. This is very important and should anyone have any issues regarding player welfare or safeguarding please reach out to either of these people. All issues are treated with sensitivity and privacy, and all discussions are confidential.

Finally, and in summary, I want to wish you an enjoyable season of hockey and look forward to seeing you around the pitches in the coming weeks and months.

Thanks,
Tom Hamilton
Chairman Bromley and Beckenham Junior Hockey Club

juniors@brombeckhockey.com