The season’s not over yet, but it’s already clear that 2024 has been a good year for Jeppe hockey.
The victories in the Aitken Cup and Alan Monk U16 competitions, and the U15 Boden Trophy side’s narrow defeat in their final will go down as highlights, but it’s the continued growth and sustained success of the section as a whole that the school is most proud of.
Mr Bryan Hillock, Jeppe’s director of hockey points out that we field around 15 teams in the big interschool fixtures and there are typically more than 15 players in each squad. “With those numbers we could probably run about 20 teams, but no school would be able to match that and we wouldn’t have games for them on Saturdays,” he said. As it is, Jeppe teams travel all over town for midweek matches to ensure that all the teams and players get at least one match a week.
In the 10 years that Mr Hillock has been in charge, Jeppe has played in nine Aitken finals and won eight; in nine Boden finals and won seven and in three out of six Top 8 finals. “More important has been our overall success rate, which has seen between 70 and 80% wins, in every one of those years.”
While downplaying his own role in all that success, Mr Hillock listed a number of factors that have contributed to it:
“We have great coaches. Jeppe has 21 full-time teachers involved in coaching and managing teams. That’s almost unheard of at school these days, and it means that we have at least two officials with every team.
“Our Hockey Patrons Association led by Mrs Debbie Stanbury, and the parents in general, throw their weight behind us and keep us supplied with both essentials and nice-to-haves.
“We have great sponsors, including Teljoy, who are the school’s main partners and who contribute to hockey in many ways, including funding the video-analysis of our games; FutureLife, who keep the 1st and U16 teams, in particular, properly fed, but are at hand with nutritional products at all tournaments and tours; Mercian, our kit sponsors; and TMC who sponsor our dinners and contribute towards kit costs.”
Jeppe is pretty unique in the emphasis we put on the mental side of the game, Mr Hillock says, and we are fortunate to have the services of Ryan Milella, who works with all the coaches.
Then there are our facilities. The school has invested heavily in the upgrading of the hockey centre. The Astroturf was re-laid this year; the watering system was replaced and a warmup area was created. Plans are under way to build changerooms at the field and, eventually, to upgrade the floodlighting.
Jeppe has 35 players and nine staff members involved in the interprovincial tournaments coming up in the holidays, so the focus has shifted to that now – but there has been a programme continuing to keep all the players active during the exam period.
And the planning for next year has started. The exciting news is that two squads will be going to Zimbabwe in December for a pre-season camp; and at the end of 2025 there will be an overseas tour to Singapore and Malaysia.
Well done to everyone involved, you continue to do the school proud.
