Half Term Hockey Tour

It was great to have the exchange trip back in the calendar again, organised by the Princethorpe Sports department, over the years thousands of pupils have participated in the hockey training camp and enjoyed the opportunity to experience another country and culture.

The five-day tour had an early start and a long day of travel on Saturday 15 October. On arrival at Hopbel Hockey Club the tour party were greeted warmly and whisked away by their Dutch host families to make friends and experience traditional Dutch family life.

In addition to three days of training and tour matches the pupils and their hosts managed to squeeze in plenty of fun, including a cycling tour round Rotterdam, a tour BBQ, mini-golf, bowling and a walking tour of the local town, Den Bosch, some even managed a tour of PSV Eindhoven.

Hockey wise, we were up against some very good opposition. Princethorpe battelled well and showed great improvement throughout the course of the tour, making use of all that extra coaching and practice. In their first two matches the boys went down 1-6 and 2-6 but remained resilient were pleased to take the final match 7-1. The girls also had a challenging run just losing out in their first match 4-5, drawing the second 2-2 and then losing 0-3 in their final game.

Director of Sport, Neil McCollin, commented, “We have had another very successful hockey tour and I am very proud of all our pupils. They made the most of the intensive coaching sessions, played skilfully and gained a good insight into how another country plays the game. Unfortunately, this time both trophies stayed in Holland but the pupils represented the College superbly and we look forward to welcoming our Dutch friends back once again in April 2023 for the return leg of the tour.”

Huge thanks go to all the staff involved in supporting and running the hockey tour: Jen Law, Neil McCollin, Dominic Phelps and Paul Whitehead.