Women's hockey talking points: Playing elite sport is Birmingham's social time while East Grinstead see value in TV return
"I'm not going to lie, it's been really difficult," says Richard Chambers, University of Birmingham women's coach. "We are a really close unit and my aim has been to make it a really fun environment because of the student restrictions. This is their social time, they can't go out as much in terms of the social aspect."
Hockey has certainly been a release for this season's Birmingham squad, despite Chambers' side sitting second bottom of the Women's Premier Division. Outside of the match environment, the players are in a constant bubble, taking in university, hockey, team and house protocols. "We have lots of different layers and it has been tough for them," he adds.
Chambers has constantly stressed the fun factor. Even at half-time against East Grinstead on Saturday, he told the team pitchside: "Go out and enjoy it." Hockey is currently the only elite sport competing competitively at Birmingham, with 12 teams across both genders. Meanwhile, the BUCS league has been put on hold until January, when a regionalised competition is mooted with no promotion or relegation, leaving Chambers to focus on this season's top flight.
"It's like cabin fever," says Chambers. "They come to play hockey for four hours every week before matches and hockey has been their release. In other sports, students have struggled as they don't have that."
The 2020/21 season has been some introduction to Premier Division coaching for Chambers, who took over from the revered Phil Gooderham after 15 years in the role. Given that Chambers has been coached by Gooderham since he was aged five, he maintains that the university philosophies are no different. "Phil was a massive part of Birmingham University, and still is, but it's a new era with the women. We don't have the likes of Lily Owsley, but we don't have players dipping in and out and we are much more settled now."
By that, he means that Birmingham are without senior internationals this season, while he has used 26 university-based players already this season. "We really want to have a go and not stand back," he says.
On the playing side, meanwhile, hockey has allowed the squad to forge a strong bond outside of the "current chaos" of university life, according to Pippa Lock.
She said: "With most of our course work being online and not being able to socialise outside of household bubbles, hockey provides a sense of routine and purpose for most of us and gives us the chance to get out of the house and to just have fun with our team-mates.
"It allows us to forget about the pandemic for a bit and just enjoy playing alongside friends. I am so grateful that we’ve been able to continue with it despite the current restrictions."
East Grinstead see value in TV return
It has been six years since East Grinstead's last broadcast a live game at the EuroHockey Indoor Club Cup, the tournament they hosted in Crawley. On Saturday, against Birmingham, the chance came to 'reignite' their in-house production arm and livestream the club's equality approach, with both the men and women in action. At half-time, the two East Grinstead female commentators across both games, Pippa Chapman and Becky Waters, linked to a live Q&A with their four players missing to GB international duty. It was a fun interlude and underlined the attraction of the game's top stars playing more of a role in club hockey, especially with GB funding uncertain and more club contact time likely after Tokyo 2020.
East Grinstead women duly maintained their place atop the Premier Division with a tight 3-2 win over Birmingham. The league's leading scorer, Sophie Bray, netted a double against her former side and was once again the star turn. However it was Birmingham who played the better hockey for large swathes of the match as they managed to net their first goals in 286 minutes. "It was a positive performance," said Chambers, Birmingham's coach. "There's no reason why we can't finish in the top six. The league is still wide open. It's been different and we still don't know what's going to happen in three weeks' time."
Elsewhere, Nicola White scored her first goal since returning from her long-term concussion injury in Hampstead's late-show win over Holcombe.
League could stretch to January
While Swansea's fixture on Saturday was curtailed due to 'fire break' restrictions in Wales, Bristol-based Clifton Robinsons also felt the effects. Eight players in the Clifton women's squad are based in Wales, with five playing regularly, and the club was granted a postponement against Buckingham. With an international window planned for this weekend and again for mid-November when GB play Germany, Juliet Rayden, Clifton's coach, believes that the first phase of the league season "could go into January" - with no indoor action this season - if there are more postponements.
Several clubs have been granted postponements in the last few weeks, while others have questioned the process if denied a request. "We are proposing a threshold where a large number of regular players are unavailable to a team due to the impact of Covid being a level where a club may postpone a fixture, once we have more data we will agree the actual level," England Hockey has told clubs. "Unavailability can be due to testing positive, requiring to self-isolate or residing in a lockdown area that means it is not possible to travel to play. As a general guide a regular player is one who has played in 50 per cent or more of a team’s matches at time of postponement but others can be considered."
