The majority of hockey is played in leagues with local country and regional associations offering players weekly matches throughout the season. The league structure has a successful national hockey league and has strong regional and county based competition structure below it. The hierarchy for ability levels in hockey is: P.E lessons in school, the school team, local club, county, regional, national and international (elite level). Also within clubs you have different teams e.g. in Milton Keynes hockey club there are four ladies teams, 1st team, 2nd team, the 2A’s and the 3rd team. All of the Milton Keynes teams are in the same league but in different divisions, this league is at county level, the divisions that the teams are in range from premier 1 to division three. (Appendix 1)
The main agency for hockey is England hockey. “England hockey has been the National Governing Body (NGB) of hockey since December 2002 having succeeded the English Hockey Association (EHA) who had to suspend operations earlier in 2002 because of significant financial problems. The EHA had been formed in 1996 to unite the separate governing bodies for men’s, women’s and mixed hockey, the first two of which had been in existence for over 100 years.” (). Other agencies are Sport England; “Sport England is responsible for promoting and investing in sport, helping the government meet its sporting objectives in this country and distributing both Lottery and Exchequer funds to sport,” (). “Youth sport trust; they believe passionately in using the power of sport to improve the lives of young people,” ( ) and “U.K sport, their goals are, world class performance, world class standards and worldwide impact. Their mission is to lead sport in the U.K to world class success.” ( )
England Hockey’s achievements in 2005/6 were, bringing more young people into the game, developing a thriving club infrastructure- club development, more umpires and more coaches, Achieve international success at the highest level, improving the profile of the sport and developing a broader income base.
Men and women are equal in this sport. Nobody in hockey gets paid to play. Some of the elite players may get given cars or get paid travel expenses so that they can get to the games but some may not even get that. If you compare hockey to football, hockey is a very expensive sport because the international athletes have to pay to play where as in football they get paid to play. In hockey you have to pay match fees and subs plus the yearly membership of around £100, maybe more, but in football you get a contract of about 4 years.
“In 1961 an organization called the British sport association for the disabled was formed; it was renamed and restructured as Disability Sport England.” ( ). Zone hockey is an adapted version of hockey that can include players of all abilities. It is for players with special needs and offers opportunities for playing with able bodied players. “Zone hockey was developed by Nottingham Trent University, the youth sport trust and England hockey. Other supporting partners include disability sport, the British wheelchair sports foundation.” ( ) It is a 5 a side game and can be played both on a hard surface, on a quarter of an artificial turf pitch, or inside a sports hall. “The first zone hockey tournament was in 2002 and resulted in the demand to set up a schools zone hockey league. Supporting partners include Disability Sport England and British Wheelchair Sports foundations. G Hockey or LG Hockey has also been developed for mentally and physically disabled children this version is not very popular but it can be found in Germany and Holland”.( )
Grass roots are essential for discovering and developing young British talent. England hockey, UK sport and Sport England secure significant levels of funding for hockey. There are hockey development centres in Manchester and Plymouth. Fresh English talent depends on good grass roots.
The reason why top hockey players don’t get paid is because there isn’t a lot of money put into hockey, for example hockey doesn’t get coverage on main TV channels unlike football, cricket and athletics. The media is the main reason for hockey being so deprived of money because no one really knows anything about hockey events unless they play. Therefore not many people watch hockey so the popularity of the sport is small in the country. The only place most people play hockey is at school. The only real difference in men’s and women’s hockey is that men’s games tend to be faster and more physical. It is quite easy for people to take up the sport and get into a team of some sort whether it is at school level, club level or higher. I think the NGB is successful because young people can get into clubs, but I also think that some young individuals do get overlooked. If someone was really good at hockey, lets say county level; it would be very difficult for them to play if they couldn’t afford all of the expenses.
References
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Appendix A
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