Nottingham Hockey Centre bosses say the facility is ready to start work on its “ambitious” community outreach programme after becoming the largest hockey centre in the world outside Holland.
Last month saw the completion of £2 million worth of investment by Nottingham High School, creating a purpose-built sports facility at Nottingham Hockey Centre – home of Beeston HC – and bringing the total number of hockey pitches to six.
The new facility will expand the school’s already impressive hockey provision and help to establish its outreach programme for hockey in the community, with a particular focus on local schools. The new development will also be available to the general public.
Nottingham Hockey Centre Chairman David Griffiths said: “I’m in no doubt that Nottingham High School’s investment will be one of the most critical parts of this incredibly important undertaking.”
Kevin Fear, Headmaster of Nottingham High School said: “We are thrilled to have completed this impressive development of our sporting facilities. Since our very successful move to co-education in 2015 we have focused on hockey as one of our major sports for boys and girls.
“The Sunday Times have recently named us as East Midlands Independent School of the Decade and our sport plays a key part in this success. This facility will also be used by the local community and means that our pitches play an important part in the city’s sporting offering.”
The project completion ran to time following some favourable weather conditions, the impressive build saw 4500 tons of topsoil removed then recycled, one kilometre of ball stop fencing and over 75,000 man hours on site.
3 years on and still no visible outreach programme from Nottingham High School, another example of an Independent School using money to aquire land and facilities with no idea or inclination of fulfilling or honouring their word! Another example of a school promising so much and delivering so little, a school with no sporting prowess, average(at best) coaches and a high turnover of Sporting Staff, doesn’t match up well to other local hockey schools despite the facilities. Two very self obsessed societies in union with Beeston HC and Nottingham High School – incredibly bad for the future of hockey in the UK.
Disappointing but not surprising to see the lack of community programme despite the assurances given in the planning processes. Multiple pitch centres are not beneficial to developing hockey at the foundation level as too few have access and less local pitches. These pitches do not benefit anyone beyond their own needs and greeds and have not been beneficial to the local schools etc