A Scottish hockey coach has been nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award at Aberdeen’s Sports Awards next month as he aims to get more young people to take up the sport.
Volunteer Sandy Keith is behind the growth of the club after a successfil merger between Granite City Men and Aberdeen Wanderers Ladies as Granite City Wanderers was established in 2003, with up to 200 members and teams competing in the national leagues in Scotland.
Having found hockey 40 years ago, he is a head coach for the women’s the youth coaching programme and the over-70s team.
Sandy said: It’s about hockey, it’s about the sport. It’s us all coming together to enjoy the same thing and showing what we’ve learned together.
“Even if we are not the best players in the world, it’s about being able to appreciate others and look up to them as well. Being a great player isn’t an attribute in itself, you have to be a human being and we are trying to teach them principles and responsibility.
Sandy is an advocate of purising club sponsors to secure better training facilities for members and says the sport needs more help if it is to continue to attract players.
“If I’m honest, the council is doing very little to help it and now we’ve lost one of our training facilities as the pitch has been transferred to the Education Department so we can’t book it at certain times or days,” he added.
“I’m in a terrible position now, I have to source our own funding to lay a pitch if I want the sport to develop in the local area.”
Aberdeen’s Sports Awards 2022 are hosted by Eddie the Eagle and will take place in January.
Delighted to see Sandy’s nomination for lifetime achievement award as a coach in Aberdeen. Not on,y does he promote youth hockey he also coached Scotland Men’s O70s team at the European Championships in Antwerp in 2019, showing that that hockey is a sport for all.