The Isle of Man Men’s hockey squad travel off-island this weekend to take part in the annual County Championships organised by England Hockey.
An 18-man squad will be heading to the event to be held at the Nottingham Hockey Centre this Saturday and Sunday (18 and 19 May), which sees 16 different counties competing in two divisions with two pools of 4 teams in each division. The Island will again be competing in the top “A” Division following a best ever 4th place finish in last year’s tournament. They face a difficult draw with last year’s winners Kent (managed by England assistant coach Kwan Browne), a Nottinghamshire team expected to field several national premier division players and Staffordshire in their pool, but the squad have been training all season in preparation for the competition.
The winners and runners-up in each pool will qualify for the semi-finals and finals to be played on Sunday, while 3rd and 4th place in the pools contest relegation play-offs.
The Manx side will be led by long-time captain Jamie Brown. The squad includes a number of players from the under-18 team making their senior Island debuts (Rhyse Williams, Archie Cox, Kian Ledwidge, Alex Andrew and Josh Dougal), while Harry Woods and Oscar Lace will also be playing in their first County Championships. The team travelling from the Island will be joined by 3 members of the squad currently playing their hockey in England, with Alex Bell, James Harrison and Will Hassall linking up with the team in Nottingham.
