Hockey

Cranleigh has a proud tradition of Hockey success, for both boys and girls, and the School has produced two Olympians – David Westcott and Don Williams – as well as a host of county and regional players. We have a strong reputation for the quality of our A teams and for the large number of teams for which we provide regular competitive fixtures, and we are the envy of schools on the circuit with our three Astroturf pitches, the latest of which was laid in 2005.

For girls, Hockey is the main sport of the Michaelmas term and for boys it is played in the Lent term by all Lower School pupils, as well as by a large number of Sixth Formers. The School’s coaching team is led by Richard Organ (currently coach of the England U21 indoor team) and Steve Batchelor, GB Olympic gold-medallist (Seoul 1988). For girls, we run four senior teams, alongside A, B and C teams in each of the three Lower School years. For boys there are four senior teams, three U16 teams, and six teams at U15 and U14 age-groups. Playing competitive sport at every level is a crucial part of our ethos and we endeavour to have a competitive fixture every week for every team.

Major hockey tours to Australia (boys in the summer of 2002 and girls in the summer of 2004) have visited Adelaide, Melbourne and also Cairns, where both hockey and a day on the Great Barrier Reef were enjoyed by the lucky tourists. We hope to continue this tradition in 2010.

We have come to expect our teams to perform well in county tournaments and we also hold the girls’ and boys’ Surrey U14 tournaments here. In 2008, both our girls’ U14 and U16 teams qualified for the county finals and we hope the boys will follow suit. A notable success was in 2006, when the U14 boys’ hockey team, after becoming county champions, went on to reach the final of the National Schools’ Tournament, losing narrowly.

Senior Coaches:

Richard Organ is both an England Hockey Centrally Contracted Coach and the coach of the England Senior International Women’s Indoor team. At club level, he coaches East Grinstead, who last year won a silver medal in the European Indoor Division B and gained promotion to the top European Division – only the third time an English club has managed this since the start of the competition over 20 years ago.

Steve Batchelor famously won a gold medal as part of the Great Britain Olympic team in Seoul in 1988, though he represented GB for 12 years, achieving many successes: a Bronze medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and a Silver medal in the 1987 Moscow European Cup Silver Medal for example. He played for England at U16 and U18 level and has extensive coaching experience at Junior, club and Senior level.

David Cresswell is an Old Cranleighan, who captained Oxford University as well as the English Universities, gaining Full Blues from 2003-2008. In the German Bundesliga he played for TC Blau-Weiss Berlin and now represents East Grinstead in the English Premier League and the Euro Hockey League. He has coached Oxford University Mens’ and Ladies’ teams, as well as the TC Blau-Weiss Ladies 1st team, Boys U18, and U16 both indoor and outdoor.

For any queries, please contact the Head of Hockey, Mr David Boggitt:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Please click here to go to Current Community/Hockey/Boys and here to go to Current Community/Hockey/Girls