The #indoorhockeyUK championships took place at the Copperbox arena in Stratford this week with Old Loughtonians entering nine teams from under 10s to under 18s. The Copperbox attracts many of the best indoor teams in the country and is a warm up tournament for the National indoor finals. Old Loughtonians under16 boys and under 18 boys as East indoor champions were both amongst the fancied teams this week.

In the u18 competition Old Loughts started well winning their group convincingly with wins against London Wayfarers, Southgate and Stone and a draw against Sevenoaks with 15 goals from Fred Cooke, Harvey Edwards and Nathan Gladman and only conceding 4. Old Loughts and Wayfarers went into the semi finals to play the first two from the other qualifying group. In a closely fought semi final Old Loughts lost narrowly 4-3 to Surbiton who went on to beat Canterbury in the final with Old Loughts winning 2-1 against Wayfarers to claim third spot. The team played some excellent hockey and will go into the Nationals full of confidence knowing they have the ability to win.

The under 16 boys also played well finishing 5th overall after wins against Cambridge City, Wimbledon and Hertford but losses to London Wayfarers and runners up Sevenoaks with the title going to Wotton under Edge. Again a very encouraging display in anticipation of the national finals. The girls u16s also played some excellent indoor hockey and also won three (against Epsom, local rivals Chelmsford and Hertford) but lost 2 (to eventual Champions HC Knowle Park and Wimbledon) and finished 6th overall.

It was a great competition for the younger players as well with the u10 boys and girls competing in their first indoor competition and all playing well with Cambridge City winning the boys overall and the girls finishing third in a group won by Teddington. Cambridge City u12s also won in the Loughts u12 boys group and Old Georgians Dragons topped the girls u12 group.

At u14s HC Knowle Park topped the girls group. The U14 boys lost their coach but rallied brilliantly to put together a great team performance and give a great account of themselves. In the initial pool stages they started with 2 convincing wins against Woking and Hornets, but then a lost 1-2 to the UK Lions, the eventual tournament winners, despite pushing them hard in a very close fought game.

That placed them in the pool of second place finishers where they got back to winning ways with 2 excellent victories in their next 2 matches. An unfortunate loss in the third was the only slight disappointment of the day. They had all the pressure but couldn’t quite take their chances. JK hockey snatched a winning goal in the closing minutes. The boys re-grouped to finish with a 1-1 draw with Wotton which meant that Wotton finished top of the group with Loughts in 2nd place again. This equated to 7th place overall out of 20 teams, but 9 games played; 6 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses could have seen them finish much higher in a different format. A great team of boys who, learned quickly and played some fantastic indoor hockey. A big thank you to Leo Kendrick for stepping in as assistant coach.

All in all it was an impressive tournament and thanks to the organisers in difficult circumstances and well done to all the teams from across the country competing and best wishes from Old Loughts for the new year.