Solent Hockey

Another busy Solent session on Friday night at Admiral Lord Nelson School.

Carefully reiterating our basic principles - passing open stick to open stick, moving on to the ball when receiving and playing it into the best position for the next pass, scanning while running with the ball and when not on the ball, the importance of using the full width of the pitch and emphasising the need for movement off the ball.

After all, in an average game each player is likely to actually be in possession for about 2-3 minutes … so what they do in the other 67 minutes is vitally important! Funny how most coaches spend most of their time coaching every thing done in those 3 minutes!!

Solent get the New Year off in style!

Over 50 girls and 40 boys attended the first Solent session at King Edwards School last night. The girls’ session was centred around learning how to ‘pre-scan’, a topic that is so frequently overlooked by coaches. Add to this all the girls, boys and parents participated in a psychology session based upon goal setting and how important this is to their future development.

Same old, same old!

The Solent girls’ latest coaching/training session was once again affected by the elements - virtually constant rain resulted in some pulling out, but over 40 girls and 9 coaches braved the conditions to reinforce their knowledge about our principles of play!

Well done to all those participating as well as a hardy group of supporting parents!

Soggy Solent

Over 80 young players braved heavy rainfall as King Edward’s School on Friday night to reinforce the Solent messages. This time it was a feature of the night to reinforce the message that a pass back is actually an attacking ball!

A Back for a Ball Forward

When you are in possession and being put under pressure there is a simple answer.
Just use the ‘drop off’ player (this is the player located our own goal side of the ball carrier, behind the ball. One of our principles of play). This may mean passing backwards - but that’s really okay! A simple pass back to a teammate behind you but who’s facing forward actually helps the team move the ball up the field faster and more safely.

Think of it as an investment - a ball back for a better ball forward. When you pass back, your teammate now has the whole field in front of them and can make a better decision than you can make when under pressure - perhaps a penetrating forward pass or a cross-field pass to open up space or stretch the opposing defence.

Many players avoid passing backwards because it doesn’t look exciting, they want to be the one who plays the big forward ball. Clever players however get it! Good decisions are built on a foundation of quality possession and this in turn requires patience and smart risk management.

So remember: use that drop off player, be patient, be clever and the game will open up for you.

Some 45 young players enjoyed the good weather on Monday to take part in a Solent Fitness Testing event that also involved learning about the value of a proper warm up. Considerable time was also spent reinforcing their basic skills and how to develop their decision making ability by learning the first steps in pre-scanning - why to look, when to look and what to look for!

It’s almost that time of year again! Fitness testing c/o the Sport and Exercise Department of Chichester University takes place next week. Here are some photos of last year’s event …

STORM AMY v SOLENT HOCKEY

A definite win for the hardy 60+ youngsters attending the first Solent training/coaching session of the season! Despite the weather’s best efforts the players and coaches worked hard on their basics and kept moving throughout.

UK Lions Tournament Trophy winners 2025

Yes it’s that really important time - after a few days of self congratulation and reflection - to say thank you to everyone who has contributed to our success!

First, and most importantly the travelling Management/Coaching team, Nadz, Andrew and Rhea, without whose efforts at Nottingham we would probably never even have made it on to the pitch!

Not to forget those who helped with the coaching of the numerous training sessions going back as far as last September - Colin Ball, with his expert goalkeeping advice, Ben Goddard, who has now learnt how to take a warm up amongst many other things and who did us all proud by his umpiring contributions at Nottingham, Ellie McMaster, Nick Tout, Pete Wiles and Jamie Fowler for helping lead sessions and Kiera Falla, Tegan Harris and Tilly Wimshurst who helped feed balls, collect in equipment and generally act as inspiration for the players by passing on their previous Solent experiences and to Beth Kent who did so, so much of the preliminary admin and organisation work over the course of the year.

To Dr Zoe Wimshurst and Performance Vision for her advice on sports psychology and how it needs to be presented to this age group in particular. I personally would thank her for all her scientific vision research which we have been integrating into our training and game play. This is unique in our sport and throughout the hockey world - take note England Hockey!

To Paul Wallis and his team at the Sport and Exercise Department of Chichester University for their fitness testing and advice.

To Chichester HC for the use of the Kingsham pitch.

To Matt and Becca at Game, Set and Match for sourcing and producing all the kit.

To all our sponsors; Woods Chartered Surveyors for the tracksuits, J J Li Ltd (Joe) for the T-Shirts, the Eighty 6 Building Group (Steve) for the Keeper smocks, an anonymous sponsor for the Wacky Solent Sox and, last but by no means least, the Atkins Foundation for tying it all together and donating about a £1000 to the whole project!

Let the celebrations begin as Solent beat Ulster in the Trophy final at the UK Lions Regional Tournament at Nottingham at the weekend! More photos and details to follow …