Remember that Ladies training returns to the regular time of 7.15pm to 9.15pm from this week.

As a result of some late decisions regarding fixtures, the Fixture Book is not 100% accurate and below are those fixtures that need to be changed or updated in your books.  The website reflects the correct fixtures.

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The girls and boys development teams each had friendly tournaments today at the Den hosting teams from Dereham and Magpies. Despite the heat, there was some very good hockey on show.  The Dragon girls drew 1 and lost 3 (suffering a bit with the heat) and the boys won 3 and drew 1.  Well done to Nat for organising and thanks to Tabba, Sarah W, Ali S, David P, Pat G, Jon P and Hazel M for their help in various ways on the day.

Unfortunately Sprowston Ladies were not able to muster a team for the planned friendly on Monday 10th September against our Ladies 2s, so we have reluctantly had to cancel after failing to get alternative opposition at short notice.  The Ladies 1s will be playing their friendly against Norwich City at 8.15pm.

We’ve launched a new website and still have one or two performance issues that we are working on, so please bear with us! Feedback on how the site looks and any suggestions for additional content are welcome via the Contact Us form.

When Norwich Dragons player Bridget Le Good got involved in a seated exercise session for ‘mature ladies’ she did not expect to discover an enthusiastic group of over 80s who were keen to know all about hockey and GBs’ chances in the Olympics.

“The ladies asked me where I had acquired my fitness knowledge. I was pleased to explain much of it was derived from England Hockey’s Single System. I explained that some of the stretch exercises they had been doing were the very same that the GB team uses in their warm up, without the chairs!” said Bridget.

“My new squad, the Eager Cedars Over 80s, asked me to bring some hockey sticks to the next session.  They were amazed at the modern sticks, having played with the long English heads made of ash more than 70 years ago. We soon got into push passes – open face and reverse, stick skills, wide base receives, and block tackles. Our highlight was low and high penalty flicks.  My top scorer is 88, and was wielding a hockey stick for the first time.

So now my ladies are ready with their flags. They are 100 per cent behind GB; they’ve each picked a favourite player, and they’ll be watching out for 50 metre aerials, lateral moves across the pitch, sprints into the attacking circle from every angle and net-busting spectacular goals.  They’re sure GB will be the golden girls.”

NDHC has signed up to Join In.  Join In Local Sport is a free, national celebration of local sport. On 18/19th August, sports clubs around the UK will be hosting special events to capture the once-in-a-lifetime enthusiasm for sport that this summer’s events will generate. Get involved at: www.joininuk.org