By Tara Murray
Footscray Hockey Club’s junior program is hoping to build on a record breaking season in 2025.
The Bulldogs junior sides won four junior shield premierships this year, which they believe is the first time it has been achieved.
Junior director Cindy Blay said they had been hopeful of having a strong season, but that had exceeded all expectations.
“We’ve gone back to Hockey Victoria to see if any club has done that before,” she said. “It comes off the back for the development of the players in the past three to five years.
“The previous junior director Mel Sanders had a massive impact on this success.
“We could not have thought about four premierships, we thought we may have got a couple.”
The club had under-sixes, under-eights and under-10s as part of their junior program.
They had big numbers in their under-12 through to under-16s with two teams in all age groups par the under-14 mixed.
While that season finished in September, the Bulldogs have been busy at work planning for next season.
“We look like we’ll have improved numbers for next year,” she said. “Looks like we’ll have a full range of teams and a mixed under-18 team
“The season starts in May and we’ve already got the numbers with expressions of interest.”
Blay said they wanted to ensure that all young players had the opportunity to go through into the senior program no matter what level they were at.
She said one of her major things was ensuring that kept female players in the sport.
“We have a strong girls section,” she said. “It’s something I believe in and trying to keep them in the sport.
“It’s all about retention and most give up in that 14 to 16 age group. We want them to feel like that they belong and part of something bigger than sport.”
To help strengthen their junior program, the Bulldogs are forming a junior academy, the Bulldogs Hockey Academy.
Blay said the academy would be able developing the skills of players from under-12s through to under-18s.
“Dan Mitchell is our men’s premier league coach and has been the women’s coach for HC Melbourne in the Hockey One League.
“He’s involved at the Victorian Institute of Sport as well. He has helped develop the program for us.
“We want to provide some more advanced skills for the juniors. It’ll run in January and February and open to any other club in the west.”
Blay said the club is also looking to further develop its coaches, with Mitchell also helping in that space.
She said they wanted to get some ore coaches accredited to help further develop the juniors,
‘We have quite a few juniors stepping into coaching and umpiring,” she said. “They normally start at under-8s and under-10s.
“We see someth development to the game of the junior players.”
The club will also continue to visit schools, after reaching more than 2000 students this year.
Anyone interested in joining can contact, www.facebook.com/footscrayhockeyclub
