Hockey growth hugely impressive

With several notable successes in national competitions, results getting better across the board, individual achievements to celebrate and participation numbers growing at a fast pace, there is a good feeling about hockey at Worth.

Since double Olympian Mr Calum Giles took over running the hockey programme at the School at the start of the 2023-24 academic year, there has been significant year-on-year progress.

In the current academic year, the 1st XI girls reached the National Plate semi-finals, 1st XI boys made it through to the National Plate quarter-finals, the U15A girls progressed to fourth round of the national ISHC Plate and the U13 girls won Worth’s own hockey tournament.

There have also been individual achievements including 1st XI goalkeeper Felix Green – a Year 10 student – being chosen for the Guildford Talent Academy playing squad which is one step away from possible age-group England selection, several boys and girls earning county selections and two younger players reaching the regional finals with Hawks Hockey Club, which is based at Worth and enjoys a link-up with the School through our Head of Hockey Calum Giles.

Mr Giles said he had ‘big plans’ for hockey at Worth when he joined the School and he is delighted with the progress being made.

He said his recipe for success is quite simple: “I try to make all the sessions fun because if you enjoy what you do, you do it more and if you do it more you get better and if you get better you enjoy it more. It is like a self-propelling cycle of success.

“The No.1 thing you do is you create the experience that they enjoy being where they are. That is mostly what I did the first year, bring a passion and enthusiasm, some energy, and get the children to buy into wanting to play hockey, because if you get them to buy into that, then getting to the nitty gritty of improvement, being ambitious and being competitive is a lot easier to sell.

“Results are getting better year on year. Participation is double if not triple which obviously increases your odds of the level getting better, competition is healthy but we have also created a culture where people see their friends are doing well at hockey or enjoying their hockey so they want to be involved.

“I have three objectives for every session: that it needs to be a safe environment, they have to enjoy it and the third one is always leave a session better than you were when you arrived. Sometimes that is not even being better technically but if you leave with a better understanding of the game then that is still a success.”

Whereas girls’ hockey has been played at Worth for many years, boys’ hockey was only introduced in 2017. While results are now consistently good, it is the number of boys playing hockey – despite the alternative of football in the Lent Term – which is delighting Mr Giles.

He said: “In my first year we had two boys who played club hockey, four or five who played school hockey, then a couple of footballers and a couple of rugby players who made up the numbers. It meant I had to plan my fixtures around football.

“We are in our third term now and we have got a first team of 15 out-and-out sole hockey players as well 14 or 15 boys that now represent the School at the 2nd team level. It depends on what you perceive as being successful – is it winning nationals or is it about offering as much opportunity to play hockey and spread the joy and the love of the game? Going from 8 or 9 out-and-out hockey players to almost 35 in just three short years is quite telling.”

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