Durham Hockey Juniors

💛🖤 GET YOUR KIDS INVOLVED IN HOCKEY! 🖤💛

Looking for a fun, active and friendly sport for your children? Durham Hockey Juniors is back this week, and we’d love to welcome lots of new faces! 🏑

Our junior sessions are open to children aged 5–16, whether they’ve played hockey before or have never picked up a stick. Their first training session is completely FREE, so it’s the perfect opportunity to come along and give it a go!

📍 Sunday 13th September – Maiden Castle
Ages 5–10: 9:30am–10:30am
Ages 11–16: 9:30am–11:00am

📍 Monday 14th September – Barnard Castle School
Ages 5–13: 5:30pm–6:30pm
Ages 14–16: 6:30pm–7:30pm

📍 Thursday 17th September – Maiden Castle
Ages 5–10: 4:30pm–5:30pm
Ages 11–16: 4:30pm–6:00pm

Hockey is a brilliant way for children to stay active, build confidence, make new friends and become part of a fantastic team.

Drop us a message if you’d like more information, or simply bring your kids along to their first session for free! 💛

🏑 WELCOME TO DURHAM CITY, GARETH! 🏑

We’re absolutely delighted to welcome Gareth Weaver-Tyler to Durham City Hockey Club as our new Director of Hockey.

Gareth brings more than 25 years of international and National League coaching experience to the club, having worked with Wales Senior Women, GB U23 Women, England U21 and U18 Women, and Wales Men’s age-group teams. He also spent 10 years as Head Hockey Coach at Durham University.

Alongside taking charge of our Men’s 1s and 2s this season, a major part of Gareth’s role will be working closely with every coach across Durham City.

He will mentor and support our coaching team, share his knowledge and experience, help with their ongoing development and bring our coaches together to create a more structured, consistent and joined-up approach across the entire club.

Gareth will also lead the development of a new coaching programme designed to identify and nurture players and members within Durham City who are interested in coaching. By giving them the right guidance, experience and opportunities, we hope to develop a strong pathway of confident homegrown coaches for the future.

This is an incredibly exciting appointment for the whole club. Gareth’s impact will extend far beyond one team, helping to strengthen our entire coaching structure and support the long-term development of Durham City.

We’re so excited to welcome Gareth to the team and cannot wait to see what the future holds! 💛🖤💛

🏑 One last bit of fun before pre-season starts… 👀

Join us this Tuesday 4th August for our final fun hockey session before the hard work begins! Expect plenty of games, laughs and a great chance to get your hockey fix before pre-season kicks off on 11th August.

📍 MC Pitch 2
🕖 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Everyone is welcome, whether you’re a current player, returning after a break or fancy giving hockey a go. Come along and get involved!

Thinking about getting back into hockey or giving it a go for the very first time? 🏑

Durham City Hockey Club are launching a brand new adult “Back to Hockey” programme at Barnard Castle School Astro starting Wednesday 13th May 🙌

These sessions are designed for absolutely everyone aged 18–80, whether you’ve not picked up a stick in years, want to improve your confidence, or are completely brand new to the sport. Beginners are more than welcome and there’ll be equipment available to borrow too!

The sessions will be run by Charlotte Galvin with support from Alan Fisher and will take place from 6:15pm–7:15pm on the following dates:

13th May
20th May
3rd June
10th June
17th June
24th June

Best part? They’re completely FREE 👏

Hockey can seem intimidating if you’ve never tried it before, but honestly it’s one of the friendliest and most social sports out there. Such a great opportunity to get active, meet new people and try something different in a really welcoming environment 🤍

📍 Barnard Castle School Astro-Turf
📧 [email protected]

Subject: Spring Training Update & Season Extension

Hi everyone,

As we approach the end of March, the Junior Committee wanted to provide an update on our training schedule and membership for the remainder of the season.

We know it’s been a frustrating winter with several sessions lost to frozen pitches and coaching availability. To make up for those five missed sessions since September, we’ve decided to adjust our schedule to ensure all our players get the "hockey hours" they signed up for.

Here is the plan moving forward:

Membership Subs: *For those who signed up before Christmas*, your final monthly membership payment for this season will be taken in March

"Free" Hockey: To compensate for missed sessions, training will continue through April and up until the May half-term with no further subs required.

Sunday Sessions: These will continue to run as normal through the end of May.

Barney Festival: We are currently looking into a Sunday festival at Barnard Castle toward the end of the term, stay tuned for more details!

We are also currently reviewing our coaching plans and summer league options to keep the momentum going into the warmer months.

Thank you for your continued support and for being such a vital part of the club. We’ll see you on the pitch!

Best regards,

The Junior Hockey Committee

Busy weekend for our juniors!

We’re looking forward to hosting Newcastle and N Shields at our training on Sunday for some friendly games!