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You are in: Home >> Media Centre >> All News Chelmsford play in the Eurohockey Indoor Club Champions Cup The Chelmsford Ladies indoor hockey team is competing in the Eurohockey Indoor Club Champions Cup in Hamburg, Germany (Friday, 23rd February - Sunday, 25th February). It’s hockey’s equivalent of the European Cup or the Champions League, and the Essex side from Chelmer Park in Chelmsford will start the competition with their opening match against Belarusian’s Ritm Grodno on Friday, 23rd February. Indoor hockey is like five-a-side football, a version of outdoor or field hockey. It’s played in a sports hall and it’s 6 players a side. Halves last for around 20 minutes rather than 35 minutes and there is a raised wall that the ball can be played off of. Chelmsford qualified for the tournament as the English Indoor Hockey Champions 2006, when they beat Canterbury Ladies 2-1 in January 2006 at the National Indoor Arena, in Birmingham. Goals were scored by Chloe Rogers and Lisa Wooding. Lynn Bollington, is a former England Indoor International, and will be team captain. She says it’s going to be a strong competition “The German’s must start off as favourites as they’re such a good indoor hockey nation, but Chelmsford stand a good chance of winning. We’ve dominated the domestic indoor hockey league for the last couple of years.” The 45 year-old led the England indoor hockey team to the European Nations Cup in 1996 when England beat Germany on penalties in Glasgow.  “We’ve got some great players, like Lisa Wooding and Chloe Rogers and no game is going to be easy. Chelmsford have been in Europe before and hopefully we can draw on that experience and it’ll be a very proud moment for me to lead my team into Europe.” Great Britain and England stars, Lisa Wooding and Chloe Rogers, will be playing for Chelmsford Ladies. The pair won bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games in March 2006 and have plenty of top flight experience. England and Chelmsford goal keeper, Katy Roberts, could also feature in the side that travels to Hamburg. 21 year-old striker, Chloe Rogers, says she’s pleased to be playing with the best teams Europe has to offer: “Some great players will be taking part and as an athlete you want to play with the very best to improve your own performance.” Wooding and Rogers have both recently returned from their first training camp with the Great Britain hockey team in South Africa. Both won their first 2 caps for the GB side in test matches with South Africa and Wooding got one of the goals as well. Chloe Rogers says Chelmsford have a very good team spirit and are one of the leading clubs in Europe: “We could be in with a chance of winning the Eurohockey Indoor Club Champions Cup. I like playing indoor hockey, it’s fun and fast. The matches are good to watch, so there should be quite a lot of people watching.”  Simon Letchford is the Chelmsford Ladies Head Coach and he says training has been progressing very well over the last couple of weeks: “We haven’t seen much footage of the other teams taking part. Lisa Wooding has been to the Indoor Hockey World Cup, currently taking place in Vienna, and she’s seen some of the players in-action for their National sides. Lisa brought back plenty of video footage for us to study.” Letchford says that Chelmsford have a lot of good players that are equal to many of the German stars. “The German players are very fast and will pose a real problem. But we’ve got England and Great Britain players, like Chloe Rogers and Lisa Wooding.” The assistant team manager, Lisa Baillie, says there has been plenty to organise: “It’s been difficult organizing the whole trip without the financial support of a sponsor. The girls have to pay for all their indoor training sessions, travel and accommodation themselves. This year, they have already spent 2 weekends in Birmingham competing in the National Indoor League.” Chelmsford Ladies will have plenty of supporters traveling out to Hamburg for the matches, which start on Friday, 23rd February 2007. “The support which we are getting from friends and families has been great. There are at least 45 supporters, or ‘Team Chelm’, traveling out to Hamburg to cheer on the indoor squad. ‘Team Chelm’ includes a Bugle player and drummer which makes for a great atmosphere when Chelmsford play.”  Order of Play
Taken from the EuroHockey website. You can follow their progress by visiting our Europe 2007 Mini-site. |
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