Club day: 22nd August

From Vicki Miller, social secretary

We are in the process of arranging a pre-season club day.  This is going to take place on Saturday 22nd August at Kinross Hockey Club. Please put this date in your diary!

The idea is to get as many old and new faces of all different ages and stages along for a fun day and night of hockey, socialising and fundraising for the club!  The event will take the format of a round robin tournament in the afternoon. This will be followed by some food and drinks at the club.  The EuroHockey Championships will also be on the TV which ties in nicely.

I will be in touch with more details in due course but please make sure you keep the date free!

Young Farmers pitch in

The Kinross branch of the Young Farmers have made a wonderful donation to the pitch fund, pledging £1000, which makes it our largest contribution to date.

Our sincere thanks to everyone in Kinross & District JAC for their support.

Kobras at Inverleith

With weary inevitability, the weather turned cold again for the Kobras trip to Peffermill for the Inverleith Tournament and parents endured several more hours of freezing cold touchlines. That said the hockey more than compensated. Inverleith is a huge event, with games running on two pitches simultaneously and brining the chance to play old foes as well as trying our luck against some less familiar opponents, including some from the strongest clubs in the east of Scotland.

We pitched up with one team at each age group: U10, U12 and U15 and it's fair to say that we had typical Kobras performances: winning more than we lost but occasionally slipping up against teams that we could have beaten. The old curse of sleeping our way through the first matches was also in evidence, at least at U12.

What was heartening about the whole day was the level of commitment from everyone. Kinross teams are showing themselves to be tough cookies at every age group and, particularly at U10, bodies were being put on the line to keep the opposition out. Very few teams we came up against were able to dominate us, and we always gave a good account of ourselves.

There's still lots for everyone to learn in terms of technique and particularly teamplay, but we're heading in the right direction.

New kit arrives

The goods ordered with our Sainsbury's Active Kids vouchers arrived today. We have four bags of balls, a wheelie bag and a whistle. The smooth balls were not quite as advertised, so if your heart was set on the wacky colour scheme you are going to be disappointed. No doubt some will be pleased though.

Many thanks to everyone who collected the vouchers.

Vote Kinross!

With a bit of luck, everybody has had a look around the new website by now, and in particular I hope you've had a chance to read the news item about the Pitch In campaign, which we hope will raise us enough money for a new pitch at KGV.

There are lots of ways that might raise us the money, and we'll be discussing these in the coming weeks and months, but here is a relatively painless one to start with.

Mars are running something called the Mars Milk Fund. The public gets to vote for a variety of good causes in the sporting arena and each month the cause with the most votes gets a thousand pounds. With a bit of luck and a bit of work by Kinross members, we might be able to make it happen.

All you need to do is go to this webpage. After telling them your age and clicking "Continue", you are taken to a page about our campaign. All you have to do is click on the "Vote" button.

Oh yes, and email everyone (EVERYONE!) you can think of and tell them to vote for us too.

And then tweet the link to your Twitter followers, share it with your Facebook friends, Instagram it, Snapchat it, Reddit it, send it out by carrier pigeon and generally shout it from the rooftops.

OK?

Over to you.

Kobras Perthshire tournament reports

The last day of May and the weather was wet, cold and miserable ahead of the Perthshire tournament. But three Kobras teams - two at under 12 and a hardy bunch of U10s - ventured forth to do battle.

Here are the tournament reports.

U12 Team A, Coached by Kirsty Dunn

Someone had put something in the breakfasts of the members of Team A. Gone were the traditional sleepy starts that many Kobras teams have made in the past. Instead we had a team of whirling dervishes, who harried the opposition mercilessly from the off, whacked the ball about, left, right and centre (and occasionally straight up in the air) and generally frightened everone who crossed their paths. Andrew and Ben were everywhere and by half time in the first match, were two-nil up against Carnegie. Sleepy Kinross made a guest reappearance in the second half and Carnegie were let back in for a time, before the team upped their game again to finish things off 4-2. In the second game JHA B found things no easier, and were dispatched in glorious fashion, with goals whacked in from all angles.

That put the team through to the first-place playoffs against the winners of the other pools - Dundee Wanderers and JHA A. First up were the Dundonians, who appeared to have shrunk one of the Scotland men's team down to young nipper dimensions and we found ourselves chasing a single individual around the pitch. We also found ourselves on the end of quite a few goals, with only a single score in response. The scoreline didn't quite do us justice, but we could have no complaints about the result. JHA were playing at a level above everyone else, including Wanderers,  and dispatched everyone who crossed their path with some aplomb. The scoreline was not one we'd like to remember.

Still, to finish third represented a spectacular performance from the whole team. Special mentions must go to Eilidh, who played like an old hand despite having only been a hockey player for a few months, to Lewis B who played out of his skin and was chosen as player of the tournament by Kirsty, and to Andrew, who led the line and set the tone of the performance.

U12 TEAM B, COACHED BY OLLIE VOLLAND

Kinross Kobras B had a team comprised of; Mathew, Luke, Anna, Sophie, Olivia, Struan, Nikki and Lewis.

Placed in pool C we first faced Wanderers B who took an early lead from a scramble in front of our goal. However as the game progressed Kinross started to string some neat passes together and the momentum swung their way, resulting in a well worked and deserved drawing goal.

Next up came JHA A, a club who usually have a well drilled team with some very skilful players. They did not disappoint and the leadership of those skilful players really put them on the front foot, with accurate passing, good use of field space and strong hitting.

Whilst it would be fair to say they scored a higher number of goals than us, a couple questioningly from outside the shooting area, I have to say that our goal was a far better team effort which left them wondering what had happened.

In the end It was a tough defeat due to the score line but to their credit the team never gave up and JHA A went on to be deserved Tournament winners.

We ended the pool stage in 3rd place and went on to play JHA B, Grove and Perthshire in the play offs.

Unfortunately each of the games were only 5 min long which really did not allow anyone to get going resulting in two nil draws and one loss.

Everyone played their part and despite the lack of a win, team spirit was good and all appeared to enjoy themselves. A special well done to Lewis D who was nominated Kinross Kobras B player of the tournament in his first tournament!

Plenty to still work on in training, but some real positives and progress in a short time. Well done and thanks to all those parents who braved the icy wind to stand on the side and support their children.

U10 TEAM, Coached by VICKI MILLEr

It was a hard day at the office for the U10s. Everyone in the team gave 110%, but still came off 2nd best in four games, drawing the other with the hosts. Passing throughout was solid and but for some tremendous defending from Ross Telfer and Lawrence Kuijpers we may have let in many more. Iona Sands and David Leslie were our goal scorers. After our last tournament game we played a friendly against Carnegie (who previously beat us 3-1). We were really focused and ran out 3-0 winners with David Savage scoring his first goal for the U10s. Special mention to Ross Telfer who was named Kinross' player of the tournament.
Overall a strong team performance, undone by a few lapses of attention. Plenty to build on and much to be positive about.
 

Minutes

For anyone who is interested in what is going on behind the scenes at the club, the minutes of the inaugural meeting and the first management committee meeting of the new Kinross Hockey Club can be found on the governance page.

Pitch in

From Gail Nelson, Club President

As everyone probably knows we are going to need to get ourselves a new pitch in the fairly near future. This is going to cost around £180,000 and we think we are going to need to raise about 20%, or £36,000 ourselves. That equates to something like £180 for each member of the club, including the Kobras.

To raise this kind of money is going to require a massive effort from everyone in the club.

A fundraising committee has been appointed: Gurdial Duhre, Richard Savage, Kirsty Dunn and Beth Robinson. Some fundraising activity has already started - we held a bake sale at the last Kobras tournament, there was a raffle at the Inaugural Dinner and the ladies did some more baking for the recent Over-35s district tournament as well as holding a quiz night. This means we have raised something over £1000 so far. That's represented by the little green square at the bottom of the pitch opposite. £36,000 will take us most of the way to the 23-metre line.

It's a start, but there's a long way to go.

At the first fundraising committee meeting, we came up with quite a few ideas, but we could certainly use some more, so I thought we'd take this opportunity to throw it open to the floor.

How are we going to raise another £35,000? (And yes, the idea of everyone taking their clothes off for a calendar has already been mooted.)

In the autumn our focus will be on members raising money for the club, but while everyone is away over the summer the Fundraising Team will still be working away, trying to raise money from the local business community. This is where we need you to pitch in and help us.

Do you have contacts in the local business community? Can you speak to your employer on our behalf? Perhaps your employer has a charitable giving scheme that we can tap into (funds can be sent to the KGV Management Committee, the charity that is our partner in this project, enabling us to claim Gift Aid).  Do you have friends or family who can help? We are not just looking for donations, but intend to offer sponsorship opportunities too. Do you know someone who might like to get involved.

Give us your ideas, give us your time, give us your enthusiasm.

We need everyone to pitch in. Let's get started now.

Ladies O35 Interdistrict Tournament

After a successful inaugural dinner on Friday evening, where we hope to have fundraised over £500 once costs are covered, 8 ladies from the club then ran and took part in the O35s Interdistrict Tournament at Kilgraston on Saturday as part of the Midland team. The team photo is attached. Elaine, Libby, Louisa, Bernie, Claire, Katy, Gail and Dr Gail.

Midland came second overall, just one point behind South, but with a better goal difference. Many thanks to Dr Gail for running an uber efficient technical table. We held a bottle stall, raffle and cake/sandwiches sale. Many thanks to the Midland team members from other clubs who also donated catering and bottles, and to Libby for coordinating the catering. Proceeds on the day were £300 for Breast Cancer and £339.10 for Kinross Hockey Club Pitch Replacement Fund.

Kobras at the Carnegie Tournament

A great pat on the back for all those that played for Kobras this Saturday at the Carnegie Tournament. With a very strong teams from Watsonians, Grange, Inverleith and Cala in addition to regular foes Carnegie and JHA it was a really strong competition and some really good hockey was played. At U10 we won three, drew one and lost two ending up 3rd in the pool of 5, all played well with David Leslie scoring some memorable goals and Alyssa Weir and Zoe McColl putting their limbs on the line in defence. Special mention also goes to Finlay McColl who played most of his games for a Kirkcaldy team that ended up 3rd in their pool. U12s faced some very strong teams and despite some great goals from Bart Kuijpers, Angus Montford and Fraser Banks amongst others could only manage 1 win their matches coming 4th in their pool of 5. At U14s the organisation and teamwork of the larger clubs was impressive but after a couple of losses we really fought hard to get wins over Cala and Kelso and emerged 4th in the pool of 6, I was really proud of the effort against the strong teams and the goal for super-sub Angus Montford against Cala got the biggest cheer from Kinross support.

The next tournaments are a Perthshire U10&U12 Tournament and National U14 Hockey Festival both on Sun 31st May. I will send out a list of those down to play, more will always be welcome and I can add extra teams to the Perthshire tournament if necessary.

Kobras Strips - I find I have very few Kobras tops left, if anybody has a Kobras club shirt could you dig it out and drop it in at training over the next couple of weeks.

Training as usual this week so hopefully you will all be able to come along.