Merton Hockey Club – Pre-Season Newsletter
With the sun setting on another fine August, it is time to get down in the basement or garage, find and rebuild those discarded hockey sticks, put the kit that's been sat in your stick bag for three months on boil wash and retrieve that glove that's been walking out of the house for another season's use.
It's exciting times at Merton Hockey Club – a new home at Tooting and Mitcham FC, and potentially a lot of new faces to help build on the successes of the last couple of seasons. This note is to let you know of the events to ease us all back into hockey playing form – to wake us up from the sedate golf, lawn bowls and cricket we've been enjoying and to wean us off the lager shandies and back on to a harsh winter regime of real ale.
Here are some of the events to be looking out for in the coming weeks…
Club Day
The club will be holding an Open Day on Sunday September 7, at our new playing headquarters at Tooting and Mitcham Football Club. I have attached a link to Tooting and Mitcham's website which contains all the directions you will need for the ground.
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~staylor2/index.html
The day will start at 12pm and continue until 4pm. A buffet will be available at the bar from around 2pm and three matches (men's, women's, junior and veterans will all be represented.) The day will provide a first opportunity for members and new faces to see the new pitches and social facilities and meet up with team mates after the summer break, so please do make every effort to attend what should be a fantastic day. Family and friends are of course welcome.
For details of the fixtures or to express an interest in playing, contact your team captain or
Lorna Connelly (tel 07980 696897)Pre Season Training
The men have started pre-season training with 4 fitness sessions at Morden Park as took place last season. 2 sessions have been completed but all are welcome for the final two, on 20th and 27th August starting at 7:30pm. Pitch and skills training will start in the week commencing 1st September. Having severed our links with North Cheam Sports and Social Club, we are still finalising a venue for training, but I will follow with details of this as soon as possible. It is nevertheless most likely that training will take place for both mens and ladies teams on Thursday evenings 8pm-9:30pm.
Social Events
We have two social events planned for the autumn. The first will be an informal get together in a mutually convenient location (Wimbledon or similar) in early October after the first league matches to allow us to shake off the summer drinking cobwebs and get our hockey drinking hats back on. Details will follow. Secondly, we organising a race night at the club to be held on Saturday, 1 November starting at 7:30pm. Entry will be £5. Again, more details closer to the time, but please do contact the club's Senior Events Management Controller,
Lorna Connelly for all your socialising needs!Website Relaunch
We're delighted to announce that the club has purchased a new web address: www.mertonhockey.com which we are currently developing with a view to relaunching the website in the autumn months. In the meantime, please continue to visit the existing official website at
www.mhc.ndo.co.uk for the latest updates and contact details.New Club Kit
The Committee is delighted to announce the availability of the Merton HC collection 2003-2004 in time for the Open Day on 7 September. Newly designed shirts and socks have been ordered in an attempt to modernise the club's image, and we are excited by the results! Shirts will be gold with black trim, and socks will be good quality cotton with 'Merton HC' scribed on the outside (or abbreviations thereof for the shorter members of the club – 'Mer' for Ben Moss for example.) The entire package and cost details will be available at the Club Open Day and look out for Committee members modelling the new shirts on the official website soon!
White Shirt Amnesty!
The club stock of white change strips has severely depleted in the last season and the club therefore requests all members check the bottom of washing baskets, drawers or the attire they are currently modelling to check for lost shirts. Please return any to your team captain as the club desperately needs the change strip for all teams next season and ordering new kit will obviously incur unnecessary costs which will ultimately be passed on to all members. Thank you.
Any queries or if you require further information, please contact me.
Publicity Executive
Mobile: 07900 082412