We welcome secondary school age players of all abilities, subject to space, and are proud to have many players representing England and Wales at age group level, as well as many others participating in the NW Talent Academy.
We believe we have the best talent development environment for both boys and girls in the North West region and are one of only five accredited Talent Centres in the North West. You can find out more about Talent Centre activity here. We also offer playing environments for juniors to play socially and build experience outside of school hockey – so there is plenty of choice, as laid out below!
Training environments
Players in years 7 and 8 take part of our ‘Hockey Foundations‘ programme held on Sunday mornings to build strong core skills, while they build experience in 11 a side gameplay as Junior mixed teams on Saturdays. This is also important as a ‘leveller’, as brand new players often join at this age, with some progressing fast once their core skills develop to become high performing players on the Talent Pathway.
Year 7 players are also encouraged to join the weekly U12 age group training on Friday evenings 5 – 6.30pm, while players from year 8-11 are also invited to take part in Talent Centre age group training on Fridays for U14 or U16s (fortnightly alternating for boys and girls).
From year 9 / age 13, players are able to start to progress from Junior Saturday friendly teams into adult league Saturday hockey, so at that age they are encouraged to join the club adult squad training sessions on midweek evenings, even if still playing in Junior friendly Saturday teams.
Just Play sessions on Mondays and/or Thursdays are more informal gameplay sessions for players in years 6-9, as well as those in years 10 and 11 who are not playing regular age group hockey. They are also open to non-members on a PAYG basis. These may be preferable to the age group training for some players, although some players do one evening of this in addition.
Players in years 12-13 tend to focus on adult training as they have wider commitments to manage, although our U18 team managers and coaches do try to arrange ad hoc training prior to competitions.
The full club training schedule can be found here.
Training overview per year group (year 7s on primary page)
Core Training Session Dates
Foundations Programme (Years 6 – 8)
This stage is a key phase of player development. To do this, it is essential to develop core skills and the ‘Foundations‘ of a great player who can perform in any team.
Therefore all year 6-8s are strongly encouraged to attend our Hockey Foundations Technical Skills training on Sunday mornings, held at the main home club pitch from 11.15 – 12.30am.
These sessions are led by NZ Internationalist and Bowdon W1s player, Alex Lukin, supported by performance players and young leader coaches.
Dates for 2025/26 are shown here.
Age Group Training
Our U14 (Year 8 and 9s) and U16s (Year 10 and 11s) are strongly encouraged to attend fortnightly Friday age group training sessions to develop together. These sessions are split by boys and girls and held on alternate fortnights. They led by experienced coaches and performance players and are the foundations for our age group teams.
If players are struggling at these sessions, they may be asked to focus on attending Just Play until they have built up more experience.
Additional England Hockey Training
‘Talent Academies’ have now been established by England Hockey to replace ‘Performance Centres’. These are intended to provide exceptional training for the top 1,000 junior players nationwide in school years 10 to 13 (i.e. U15 to U18 inclusive). Following a tender process, the running of these has been outsourced to clubs who wish to operate them at their venues; the Talent Academy serving our area is run by Timperley Hockey Club.
Bowdon HC identifies and nominates appropriate players for NW Talent Academy trials who our coaches feel fulfil the England Hockey nomination criteria; this is only a small number of players each year. Those who are successful in trials take part in additional Talent Academy development sessions held at Timperley HC.
County Hockey: Some players may also wish to take part in County Hockey, which is open access and designed to offer wider opportunities for those playing hockey at non-Talent Centre Clubs or at Schools, although players at Talent Centres like Bowdon are still able to take part if they would like to play beyond the club programme.
More information on the England Hockey Player Pathway can be found here.