Video: Club vice-captain Issy Davison is excited about the partnership
In a world first, a Nottinghamshire hockey club have joined forces with another major European team to boost the sport’s development.
Beeston Hockey Club is pairing up with HC Rotterdam in the Netherlands to boost the development of hockey across Europe.
The teams will share players, practices and ideas to promote growth in the teams, players and the sport across the continent.
Vice captain of Beeston Hockey Club Issy Davison says it is easy to be ‘tempted’ by the prospect of playing for one of the best clubs in the world.
Speaking on Sports Week, she said: “It is tempting to go over and play in the Netherlands as hockey is huge there, the stadiums are always packed full, so it’s something I’d consider as a possibility.
“The Dutch players have incredibly high technical skills and they’ve always been at the forefront at hockey.
“It’s fantastic that we won the gold medal at Rio 2016 but there’s always something that we can get better at, and having that partnership with the Netherlands can definitely aid us in making hockey even bigger than it is already.”
Head coach of Beeston Hockey Club Colin Clarke says he is relishing the opportunity this presents to the club to become one of the best in the world.
He said: “The idea of this is to share our ideas and best practices from a player’s point of view.
“We have a number of Beeston players who have gone over and played at Rotterdam and we’re looking to develop that further so more players can come back and forth.
“It’s an amazing opportunity as they put out around 70 teams per week, they have a really good youth set-up and social section along with one of the best club teams in the world which is what we aspire to be.”
For more from Issy and Colin, watch the February 1 episode of Sports Week on Notts TV at 7.30pm, or see our catch up service.
