Welcome

Welcome to the Oxford University Hockey Club Alumni newsletter. Mid-

way through the 2016-17 season, we bring you a summary of our teams’

performances in the run up to Christmas as well as our Captains’

aspirations for their teams in the New Year, especially looking forward to

the Annual Varsity matches. The Club President, Charlie Hill, also takes us

through his thoughts on what promises to be another successful year for

OUHC.

So far this season, we have welcomed a large number of new players into

the club, and OUHC continues to be one of Oxford’s largest and most

successful sports clubs. After many years of discussion, this term the club

voted to introduce a new Men’s 4th team- the Sporadics- in order to allow

more players to take part in a competitive level of hockey. We are

delighted that the club is expanding and that the OUHC family is growing!

For those of you who wish to stay involved with the club this year, please

see the ‘dates for your diary’ section below. Thank you to all those who

have already signed up for the Annual Alumni Dinner, this year to be held

at again St Hilda’s College, Oxford. Booking for this event is still open so if

you are interested in attending please fill in the form found at this link:

Alumni Dinner Google form. This event was thoroughly enjoyed by all

last year and Alumni of all years are encouraged to attend.

For alumni looking to get back in touch with the club, please do not

hesitate to contact us. I am the Alumni Secretary and would be delighted

to hear from you at charlotte.molony@stcatz.ox.ac.uk. The contact details

of other committee members can be found on the Oxford University

Hockey Club website, where you can also view the most recent results

and match reports from all our teams. You will also soon be able to find

further information about the Varsity matches on the Varsity match

website www.varsityhockeymatch.com.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued

support of OUHC, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy

New Year!

Charlotte Molony

Alumni Secretary 2016-17

President’s Report

Michaelmas 2016 has got off to a roaring start. With the new Men’s 4th Team which are now not just Duncan Graves’ dream, but a reality. The creation of the Sporadics has swelled the club’s numbers beyond its usual amount and has given everyone another excuse not to talk to people who don’t play hockey. The team have fully integrated into the club atmosphere which has been strong on and off the pitch this year. The I’s have been enticing supporters down pitch side on a wet Wednesday with the offer of free beer and the club registered a great turn out to watch the Women’s Blues BUCS varsity warm up match vs Cambridge. Christmas Dinner was a great success with over 100 members attending at All Bar One, now the usual venue for the OUHC dining events. The Club cohesion and spirit shown at that event will surely be continued into the next term with some great events coming up. The 2s/3s varsity event (26th February) is being held in enemy territory this year. Known as the best away day of the year the whole club will be there on the side lines. Finally, the varsity match will be returning to Southgate this year (12th March) and will be great to see you there. With both Oxford teams ahead of Cambridge in their respective BUCS leagues, this year is not one to miss with the double definitely on. The continued support from JP Morgan has been invaluable in the start of the year so far. Unfortunately, JP Morgan can’t fund the whole club. As many of you will remember, the financial support that Hockey gets from the university has been constant and low. The success of our club therefore, depends on the support we can get through sponsorship and alumni donations. Your generosity helps keep the club up to the standard you will remember from your time here. We are very grateful to those of you who are already supporting the club already, but I hope many of you reading this newsletter will remember the great times you

Dates for your diary:

Annual Alumni Dinner: 21st January 2017, St Hilda’s College, Oxford

2s/3s Varsity: 26th February 2017, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge

The Blues Varsity Match featuring Men’s and Women’s Alumni Varsity matches:

12th March 2017, Southgate Hockey Centre, Barnet

Alumni games: (provisional date) 20th May 2017, Iffley Road, Oxford

Men’s Blues Captain- Ryan Kavanagh

Women’s Blues Captain- Naomi Kelly

had with the club and contribute, so that those with the club at this moment can have those same fond memories to carry forward with them. We have details of how the money would be used at https://www.giving.ox.ac.uk/. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any queries. I hope you enjoy the newsletter this year, and I look forward to meeting many of you this year at the alumni dinner and beyond.

Charlie Hill

OUHC President 2016-17

Men’s Blues – Ryan Kavanagh

The Men’s Blues 2016/17 season started with a solid base, as we had 11 returning Blues in our squad. We had an extremely busy preseason schedule and the team showed their class right from the outset. During preseason our ambition for promotion was affirmed as a realistic expectation. We won matches against three BUCS sides in the league above us, namely Bristol, Reading and Brookes. The preseason was

capped off with a tough win away to a strong Sheffield side, where we showed a lot of grit and character. In the Saturday league we have got ourselves in an excellent position to push for promotion. We are currently sat in second place, one point behind the leaders. The team has played some outstanding attacking hockey and pulled out some resounding wins against the likes of Lewes, Holcombe and Blackheath. In the second half of the season the focus needs to be on eradicating the lapses in concentration that have lost us games. In the BUCS league it is a similar story, we are currently top of the league. However, as is the nature of BUCS, everything is still to play for. The key result this year was definitely the 1-0 win over Cardiff, which put us top of the league. It was an incredible performance from a depleted side that gave us control of the league again. Hopefully this will give us the mental edge over them in our next match, which could well decide who gets promoted. The aim for the Blues next term has to be to maintain focus and do justice to the way we’ve played up until this point, by securing promotion in both leagues.

Women’s Blues – Naomi Kelly

The Women’s Blues have experienced a challenging yet promising start

to the season. After losing key players from last year’s winning Varsity

squad, the addition of some of last year’s Rads and new Freshers has

meant the Blues now have a large, strong squad continually competing

for selection.

Our Saturday league has proven extremely tough this year with three

of the other club sides not being able attain promotion, due to their

respective Ladies’ 1s sides playing in higher leagues. So far the team

has found it difficult to convert our dominating style of play and

opportunities into goals, leading to our disappointing and undeserved

league position at this time.

Every match has been attacked with huge effort and this has been

reflected through results against teams at the top of our league. The

team put in outstanding performances against both Barnes, top of the

table, only losing 1-0 and Surbiton, who are second, drawing 1-1.

Results such as these provide great hope for the second half of the

season.

Our BUCS league witnessed the arrival of Cambridge after their

promotion at the end of last season, making it all that more important

to perform well each week. Currently second in the league we’ve

secured our safe position for next year and set ourselves up to be real

contenders for both the league title and in the upcoming cup

competition. Rarely outplayed, shown through our 1-1 draw with top

of the table Exeter, we look to expand on our excellent performances

in the second half of the season.

After a tough start to the season, the team has experienced massive

improvement and are positively looking forward to the run up to

Varsity, especially with Cambridge being two places below us in our

Wednesday league table.

Will Mooney carrying the ball for the Men’s

Blues

Club President Charlie in action for the Os

Occasionals – Jonathon Attwood

An O’s Christmas Carol

On Christmas Eve, EdBurnsnezer is visited by the ghost of JT Marley,

his old business partner. Marley tells Scrooge that he is to be visited by

three spirits in the night, and that he must mend his ways before he

leaves university if he want to avoid Marley’s fate, wandering his old

Oxford haunts on a Wednesday night, dragging behind him a ball and

chain, too old to have fun.

First, EdBurnsnezer is visited by Will Vaudry, the Ghost of Christmas

Past. This spirit shows Scrooge scenes from his boyhood, when he was

a gentler and happier man. Will shows him one Christmas dinner when

he played cricket in the alleyway and threw a double leaning jowler in

the pub, although Will Mooney was nowhere to be seen.

The next night Scrooge is awoken by Maxim Robertson, the Ghost of

Christmas Present. Max takes EdBurnsnezer to see the OUHC

Christmas Dinner, where Bob Crattchwood and the rest of the team

are celebrating together. Ed meets Tiny Tim Dry, who doing his best to

celebrate despite being seriously ill. Scrooge worries for Tiny Will Dry

and resolves to do more to look after him.

On the third night, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge

a Christmas day in the future, long after he has graduated. A fearsome

figure wearing a hooded bathrobe and clutching a hockey stick in his

icy grip shows Scrooge his once beloved team, losing 5-4 to

Trentborough 8s away with only eleven men, not singing in the shower

together after the game, not crewdating at the services, and not

making it into park end. Scrooge vows to never ever let this happen.

On a more serious note, the O's are on track for promotion in their

Saturday league despite being relegated last year- sitting in 3rd with 2

games in hand. In BUCs the O's are looking to secure a mid-table finish

after an unlucky start to the season with many 1 goal defeats.

Radicals – Ellen Young

To sum up the Radicals season so far, ‘fun’ is the word which springs to mind.

With a huge contingent of Freshers and only a few returning senior members,

our team has faced the perennial problem of having to find cohesion in a very

short space of time. This year, our focus has been the Saturday League and we

hope to finish in the top half of the competition. However, in classic Rads style,

we like to make things hard for ourselves and have started very slowly.

Indeed, with a combination of my yips at admin and an inability for us to

convert our play into material wins, we finish Michaelmas below the half way

mark.

In BUCs, however, the Rads have demonstrated their potential to play some

beautiful hockey and we are, deservedly, at the top of the league. A triumph

so far has been our game against Loughborough, in which we clawed back

from a 0-4 loss at half time to a 5-4 win by the final whistle. This shows the

determination we are capable of, and I hope that this will be continued to a

much greater extent next term.

Undoubtedly, this term would not have been so enjoyable if it were not for

the great personalities we have within the team. Certainly, our team’s bond

off the pitch is stronger than ever before. I can proudly say that the Rads’

attendance at Park End has been 100% and highlights such as ADF and Disney

night will not easily be forgotten.

Finally, I’d like to thank Potbelly, Fanners and Greenbank for their great

dedication to our team so far. As a returning coach, Bonk has led us superbly

and his commitment to our team is appreciated more than words can express.

Bonkle’s old and (occasionally) grumpy demeanour starkly contrasts to the

youth of the two Andys. As they encourage flair so highly, this season has been

by far one of the most enjoyable for all of us.

As we look to Hilary, we know what we need to work on and hope to translate

our potential into success.

Infrequents – Nick Hooper

The Infrequents started their season in characteristic manner: we got

binned, heavily, twice: 11-2 and 6-1. But, from this point, you can only

really go up. We rallied ourselves, bolstered by an influx of new faces,

and ended up having an extremely successful term of hockey. To list

some of our feats this Michaelmas term: i) we are unbeaten in our

BUCS league; we are in round 3 of the cup; we are 6th in the Saturday

league, 2 points the Os.

As I said, our new Freshers have added a lot to the team and OUHC.

They have pace, excellent hands, and impressive commitment to the

team on and off the pitch. Thanks to a certain Johann Perera, a Honey

Badger is even dominating the Fantasy League.

Of course, we still need a core in the team: the returning Infrequents

to provide continuity in the team and teach the younglings the

intricacies of OUHC’s many and varied drinking games. Aylward has

provided wisdom through age; Jan has enthusiastically taken the

Freshers under his wing; Ferg Neve is still delivering lectures on port;

Hampton occasionally has time to play hockey despite his high-flying

job; Harry Style is prolific in the D; and Luis Messner is still the laziest

man I know.

The Infrequents have also delivered (kind of) with its long-term

promise of integrating with the rest of OUHC. There’s always an Is

A Radicals selfie after a rainy match

Sophie Taylor making a pass for the

Women’s Blues

presence at Vinnies, however small. And thanks to the Sporadics, we

are now the 2nd least well-known team in OUHC.

We have a great team atmosphere in the squad at the moment, and

hopefully this will continue into next term as we continue to win

games in both our leagues (and shoe the tabs of course!). Special

thanks must go to our coaches, Conor Magowan and Kaushik

Sureshkumar. Conor has taught us how to have more ‘swag’, and

rumours are Kaushik is returning to the Honey Badgers next term – he

has finally realised that being a part of OUHC is much more fun than

actually doing a degree.

Mavericks – Jemima

The Mavs have had another excellent season, finishing 4th in our Saturday

league, and 3rd in BUCS (although we haven’t had too many Wednesday

games yet) in time for Christmas.

We are coached once again by Nick Leech and David Jones, joined this year by

Tom Morrison. The boys’ dedication and enthusiasm is contagious, and the

girls continue to strive to improve under their keen advice as a result.

Michaelmas term has involved many beautiful sunrises over Tuesday’s early

morning trainings, a couple of winning penalty flicks, a hungry caterpillar

themed team night, 5 too many trips to the JR hospital a few goodbyes to

rising stars joining the Rads and many more hellos to wonderful Freshers.

Many valued members of the team graduated last year, which was a huge loss

for the Mavs. Consequently the beginning of our season was slow (as it often

is!) due to not having established a team yet, and unfortunately the end of

term was even slower due to members’ departure on varsity ski trip. However

we have welcomed 10 new hockey Freshers who have quickly settled into the

spirit of the club and have made a great impact on the team!

Next term we hope to continue to improve our performances in both leagues.

Many of the girls are determined to master some of the trickier skills we watch

the Blues teams perform such as aerials, tomahawks and drag flicks. And

finally, we hope to retain the title of Ladies 3s Varsity winners.

Nick Hooper making a pass for the Is

A smiley team of Mavericks after their match

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