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NATIONAL YOUTH FESTIVAL
Over 600 young people participated in the 4th Annual National Youth Hockey Festival at Highfields Sports Centre, Nottingham from 12th - 14th May 2006. A record 1600 visitors over the weekend made this year’s National Youth Festival England Hockey’s biggest youth hockey event.
For the third year running the England Hockey Youth Panel (which included Becca Owen from Gloucestershire and Nikki Hutchings from Devon) took charge of the weekend leading their team of young volunteers through the event.
The weekend began on the evening of the 12th May with the arrival of 46 young leaders and umpires who were selected from national entries and Regional Young Umpire Action Group nominations to participate in the Challenge weekend.
The Saturday featured an Under 9s Olympic themed Festival and the Plate final of the National Schools Championships for Girls before England Under 21 Women hosted Wales Development in the NSPCC Charity International on Saturday evening.
The National Mini Hockey Championships are the flagship event at the National Youth Festival and these took place on the Sunday. Under 11 and Under 13 boys and girls regional winners competed for the title of 2006 national champions. The West representatives were:
U11 Boys Forres Sandle Manor School, U11 Girls Millfield School, U13 Boys Taunton Prep School and U13 Girls Clifton College. The Tournament Director was Somerset’s Yvonne Claridge and the young volunteers and officials were responsible for running the pitches.
Congratulations to Forres Sandle Manor School who won the U11 Boys event.
Five umpires from the West region attended -the first time ever that umpires from the Westhave taken part in the event. All the umpiresperformed well and thoroughly enjoyed theweekend.
The young umpires (pictured below) were, from left to right, Sam Stickland, Simon Higgins,Nick Bennett, Harry Stickland and Pip Wilcox.
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