Following the announcement of the Club of the Year winners,we are profiling each category winner on our site.
First up, Uddingston HC! We asked Uddingston’s Coach Steven Percy to let us know a bit about themselves, what the award means and what lies ahead.
First, let’s start with some history about the club
Uddingston HC is located near the city of Glasgow, in the city of Uddingston. They have 290 members (and counting!) and have most recently celebrated a first for the club: the first men’s team reached the top domestic league in Scotland in both Indoor and Outdoor! The hockey club has been in existence and around Scottish Hockey for some time, but it ’s only really been the last 5 years that a move was made to vastly improve infrastructure and organisation. The club now has a rapidly growing women’s section, a great youth section with an in-school coaching programme which works with 14,000 pupils each year.
Tell us about your biggest achievement to date
We have 290 members currently. The clubs biggest national achievement to date would be a double promotion (indoor and outdoor) last season where the mens first team reached the top levels of domestic competition in Scotland, the first time in 20 years for outdoor and the first in our history for indoor. The team finished 3rd in the indoor campaign this year. Other than the playing side of biggest achievement was building our own world class facility.The latest success is of course our water-based facility and we have ambitions to develop our facility further including a changing facility and indoor hall.
What does 2016 have in store for your club?
2016 is the continuation of all our good work, we have developed a business plan for the next four years and this includes continuing to develop our youth and senior teams, creating more opportunities for people to play hockey and developing our workforce to become the most professionally run club within Scotland. We’re also expanding our recreational programme by introducing fun fitness classes and also expanding our performance programme to make our good young players, great players.
What main targets does your club have over the next 2- 3 years?
We’d would like our mens and woman first teams to be playing at the highest level possible, our youth section to continue growing, to have a completed changing facility and indoor hall, to have our most talented players have recognition at district and Scottish level and the maintenance of our successful in schools programme.
What does winning Club of the Year mean to your Club?
We have a core group of volunteers who have bought in a lot to the vision we have for our hockey club and are committed to help achieving this, the award helps value those people’s work and time and shows that we’re going in the right direction. We hope it will re-energise our club to keep moving forward and help further achieve our potential.
Source: EHF/Uddingston HC
Photographs: Uddingston HC