Hockey: Re-think required to challenge elite

May 7 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

DURHAM University have become the first North East team promoted to the men’s England Hockey League – but director of hockey Gavin Featherstone has warned they must now decide if they want to continue progressing or tread water.

Four years to the day after rejecting the opportunity to coach China into this summer’s Beijing Olympics to return to the university he studied at, Featherstone saw his charges clinch a place in English hockey’s elite with a 5-1 win over Kingston-upon-Hull on Monday.

Durham topped a six-team play-off group by one goal scored, ensuring a place at the national level their women reached the previous year.

For Featherstone, an ex-Chelsea footballer who captained the England hockey team at every level before coaching USA and South Africa, it was a proud achievement against the odds. Now he wonders if his bosses will see it as the end or start of the process.

One suspects Featherstone is leaning towards remodelling his club along the lines of Loughborough Students, who do not limit their squad to current students. If so, he is sitting on the fence in public.

“We’re at the stage where if we had the same level of ambition we would have to compete against the top 10 clubs (who make up the Premier Division),” he says. “Our average age is only 20, whereas all the top 10 have five or six internationals and an average of 26.

“For the women I think it’s sustainable. But on the men’s side we have to do a lot of talking to decide if it’s sustainable in the North East. Do we have to open the club up? I’ve got an open mind on it but it’s one hell of an ask to get an under-graduate team into the top 10.”

While the majority of his players hail from beyond the North East, Featherstone hopes Durham’s promotion – effectively sealed by Josef Francis’ instant equaliser in Sunday’s 2-2 play-off draw with Fareham – revitalises the sport across the region. He does not hide his resentment at the establishment’s perceived bias against the area. “It’s a really good thing for North East hockey,” he said. “Having two teams in the National League means we should have a home game every weekend and quite a few of those on Sundays. When they are we’ve plans to open up the facilities to the local clubs.

“The question is, will England Hockey continue to steer all the top young talent towards four centres (Southampton-Portsmouth, Bath-Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and ‘the Loughborough-Nottingham Axis’)? People are pushing players away from Durham to weaker teams.

“It would be no good England ignoring Paul Gascoigne or Alan Shearer because they’re from the North East. We’ve only got one men’s player involved in the international set-ups, Scotland Under-21 goalkeeper Jamie Cachia. We’ve a striker in James Warburton who has scored 35 goals and he’s being overlooked.”

Featherstone, though, is quick to warn others there is no quick-fix. He said: “I normally take on jobs over four-year periods between Olympics but Peter Warburton (Durham’s director of sport) said he’d give me six to get the men’s and women’s teams into the National League. Both parts have been achieved two years ahead of schedule. In football, the resources are there for Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle, the resources for our hockey clubs are pitiful.”

I’ve got an open mind on it but it’s one hell of an ask to get an under-graduate team into the top 10