by Guiliana di Rollo

Wed 22 July
Sizzling heat, great tans, skillful hockey, entertaining company and plenty of useful coaching; that pretty much sums up the skoolsports tour of Barcelona. As we got off the plane the Spanish sun hit our backs and we made our way to our Athletic Terassa hockey club on our thankfully, air conditioned bus. Within 5 minutes of arriving, we were instructed to change into our rather snazzy playing kit as we had a match against the Spanish girls! Slim, skillful, elegant, tanned, the Spanish girls were very intimidating! I won’t go into the details of the score line, however, we acquitted ourselves admirably, scoring a couple of goals and coping very well considering our hurried arrival.  After a long day we were ready for tea! A mountain of spaghetti was served and consumed within seconds and we were off to our beds.

Thurs 23 July
Reluctant to leave our beds but excited and eager to start training, we went along for a hearty breakfast to keep us going through our 2 hour training session. Playing in the heat was hard to get used to initially but we soon got into the drills and forgot all about it. The 2 hours whizzed by and it lunch was soon on the table.
After lunch we headed for the pool, a refreshing swim was just what we all needed! Our second training session of the day was next and we were all raring to go. Feeling a bit stiff we were glad to hear that we would be watching a match between two of the Athletic Terassa teams, which we all enjoyed! Another early night was needed, not too early as our very generous coaches granted us a long lie in!

Fri 24 July
No hockey this morning but a gentle jog, stretch and swim in the lovely outdoor pool. We were advised to eat plenty at lunch; not only were we eating late but we had a match against an American-Dutch team. That big lunch obviously paid off as we won 5-1, with everyone putting a hard shift in and playing their socks off. Special thanks must go to the opposing team’s stand in goalie, who very kindly went in goals for our team and played very well! Thank-you! As a reward we were treated to see the Scottish women playing Spain!  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the match, a fantastic standard of hockey. Much to our surprise we were lucky enough to have a photo with the team, a lovely thing to do for us after such a hard game. None of us could really sleep knowing that we would be going to our hotel the next day and touring Barcelona, so we stayed up for a bit and chatted to the coaches about what areas we could improve in.

Sat 25 July
Bright and early we got out of our beds, packed our luggage and headed out for the city centre in our trusty coach. The hotel was very nice, and the views from our rooms were great as well, both a great distraction from getting ready for our bus tour. Cameras, sun cream and money were packed and we were on our way. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour; it was a brilliant way to see the city. After lunch at a very nice buffet, which was all you can eat, much to my delight, we were headed for the Nou Camp! A 3-D video, trophy rooms, the commentary box and the stadium itself were all enjoyed before a quick stop at the gift shop. Back at the hotel we were all very tired, most the girls however still had energy in them to go shopping! After a delicious meal at a tapas bar we came back to the hotel, a lovely evening was rounded off with a birthday surprise for Kate who turned 14. With our stomachs full off cake we went to bed happily trying to forget about our early start in the morning!

Overall, it was a highly successful trip. I thoroughly enjoyed myself as well as improving my hockey skills tremendously. Thank-you Colin, Rob, Becky and Gail, you were all great coaches to have on the trip and contributed greatly to the success of the trip. Thank-you!

by Natalie Binnie

Wed 22 July
This was our first day of the tour, and there was a buzz in the atmosphere! We all were unsure of what to expect in Barcelona. We rushed quickly from the airport to the bus to try to get to the campus on time to play our match. It was humid and hot; we wondered how we would last in an hour long match with only 1 sub. The campus looked really good, it was huge with many water-based hockey pitches, a swimming pool, tennis courts and a café. We didn’t get much of a look around as we had to change quickly to play our match on time. It was quite nerve-racking as we weren’t sure how good the team we were playing would be and we as a team had never played with each other before. We lost the match 6-2, with Becky scoring our 2 goals. It was a tricky match, as we had to adjust to the heat and the opponents very fast ball pace which many of us weren’t used to. They were fast and skilful; it was a good match to learn from. We discovered shortly after the match that our opponents were a selection of the best players from the 3 best clubs in Spain and so weren’t too disheartened. After, the match we had tea in a café hut which was welcomed by all.

Thurs 23 July
We had training from 10-12 today, it was hard work in the heat but really useful and we learned a lot. An international Spanish coach was coaching us, with a Spanish international helping him. They were teaching us many sneaky little tricks and skills which would be useful in a hockey match. We then took a 3 hour break, using it to have lunch and rest. After our own siesta, we had another training session from 3-5pm where we put our newly learned skills into practice in mini-matches against each other. We had all pretty much adjusted to the heat by now.

Fri 24 July
We had another training session this morning, this time without the Spanish coaches, in which Colin, Becky, Rob and Gail helped us prepare for our match later on that day. We were then given time where we could go to the pool, sunbathe and relax as we had a match later and so the 2nd training session wasn’t happening. We played a team which consisted of a mixture of Dutch and Americans, most of them slightly older than us, who were here on the campus on their own type of camp. We won 5-1 and played really well as a team. Everyone had improved and adjusted well to the heat, and we played pretty solidly throughout the match. After our match, we took a bus to a small stadium with a hockey pitch where the Scottish international ladies were playing Spain. Scotland lost, but it was a good experience to see the type of hockey they played and it set a standard of what we could aim for in the future.

Sat 25 July
We quickly got up this morning and onto the bus, leaving for our hotel in Barcelona. We had a brief glimpse of the hotel, which looked really nice, before we went to try and get on a tour bus which would take us around the city. We got off the bus to have lunch at an all-you-can-eat place, and then visited the new Gaudi church. After, we took the under-ground to the Barcelona football stadium, Camp Nou and had a tour around there which was quite interesting. A couple of hours later we went back to the hotel. We were allowed a quick shop before we went out to tea at a tapas bar. We were served delicious food which everyone enjoyed. Later, we walked back to the hotel where we sang ‘happy birthday’ to Kate and Rob and we all had a piece of cake. We realised later on that we would only have a few hours sleep before we had to get up for our flight at 4, and so went to bed. All in all, it was a great experience and an enjoyable tour.

by Rebecca Trimble

Wed 22 July

As we sat waiting for everyone to arrive in Edinburgh airport, everyone was very excited and full of enthusiasm for the trip . We were issued with our personalized strips. The fun had begun... !

It took a long time to get to Terrassa Hockey club especially with two flights and a short bus journey. We all felt very relieved that we had got there in one piece and without dying of the heat, only to find straight after we had got off the bus that we were to play a match against a local Spanish team. As predicted we didn’t do too badly but also didn’t win. This wasn’t surprising as we had just come off a bus with a day of traveling behind us and most of us hadn’t played before together. All the same we put up a pretty tough fight and no-one was too downhearted.

Thurs 23 July

The next morning we had a early wake up call and a short run before breakfast. After that we had morning, afternoon, and evening training sessions consisting of about two hours each, broken up by meals and drinks of Aquarius, a Spanish sports drink in between. For one of the training sessions, we were coached by a Spanish international player, Pere and one of Spain’s leading coaches. We were taught different types of innovative passing and then stick skills concentrating on lifting and shooting into the goal. We all slept very well that night!

Fri 24 July

We had a leisurely morning consisting of a late-ish breakfast followed by a swim and then lunch. After our afternoon training we played a match against a Dutch team which we won comfortably 5-1. Since it was our last match playing together and only 70 minutes of hockey left of the trip, everyone gave it their all. That night after dinner, because of everyone’s high spirits, we stayed up late into the night doing stick skills and tricks.

Sat 25 July

The next day we took the bus to Hotel Alexandra, a four star hotel in central Barcelona. From there we took an open top city tour bus and discovered the many historical and modern sights and attractions of Barcelona. We were lucky enough to see: the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Casa Mila and La Pedrera all by Gaudi, the world famous Spanish architect. We also saw the Spanish bank, the World Trade Centre and much more. One of the highlights of the city was our tour up close and personal with Camp Nou, the home of FC Barcelona. After that we went back to the hotel by metro and had a quick shopping opportunity before dining in a local Tapas restaurant. The food was great and we had some late night drinks and celebrated Rob and Kate’s birthday back at the hotel. It had been a very tiring day and a late night and so everyone grabbed as much sleep as they could before the early flight back home in the morning.

It was a fantastic trip, everyone got along really well and we all came back complete with new skills and new friends.

I would like to thank all the coaches, Colin, Rob, Becky and Gail on behalf of the team for making the trip such a successful and enjoyable one.

Top level International hockey comes to Scotland later this month on 26th-28th June as Scotland’s senior men and women take on France, Ireland and Wales in the Celtic Cup at Peffermill in Edinburgh.
Scotland’s senior women will be looking to get their hat trick event title in front of a home crowd after winning the event two years running.  The men want to move up a spot to grab silverware after finishing second last year behind Ireland.
If these reasons alone aren’t enough to come down and watch, Scottish Hockey’s Performance Manager Callum McLeod explained: “Scotland will field some of the world’s most exciting players.  Great Britain Player of the Year Ali McGregor (Loughborough Students) will be in the net alongside his Olympic team-mate Stephen Dick (Inverleith) and Olympian Laura Bartlett (Milne Craig Western) will take the pitch for the ladies.

Skoolsports coaches are involved with Rob Barr, Fergus Dunn, Craig Harper, Graham Moodie, Mark Ralph, Becky Merchant and Nikki Kidd representing Scotland.

Season tickets covering all three days are £12 at the gate or £5 per day.  U16s and OAPs get in free.

Senior Celtic Cup Match schedule

Friday 26 June 2009

Saturday 27 June 2009

Sunday 28 June 2009