With the England Hockey and government guidelines recently changing to allow hockey matches to resume, Ely City Hockey Club welcomed many of their past and present players to their annual President’s Day tournament on Saturday. Although small group training has been allowed for a few weeks, this was the first time any matches had been played and everyone relished being back on the pitch.

Matches were spread out over the afternoon with the Ladies Legends, Ladies Masters and Ely 2020 battling it out for the ladies crown this year. Winners for the past 3 years, the Legends were keen to make it a fourth successive win, but the Ely 2020s had other ideas. Despite many attempts on goal the Legends were unable to score in the deciding match, losing 0-1 with a short corner goal scored by the 2020s, 5 minutes from the end of the match.

With a number of the mens players unfortunately unavailable, there were only two mens teams playing– the Old Boys and the President’s team - but this didn’t take away from the rivalry and after two fast paced matches with the Olds Boys showing that they had lost none of their skills, the President’s team came away triumphant.

Club Vice Chairman Martin Brown, who organised the day said ‘The day was a great success and lovely to welcome back many old faces. It was also really good to see people playing hockey again and it gave us a chance to practice putting the new COVID regulations into place before the season starts. We also raised over £1100 which was fantastic, and which will be shared between Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Club’s floodlight replacement fund.’

Hockey is still allowed to continue under the latest government guidelines and the leagues are scheduled to start on the 26th September. The Club welcomes players of any age and ability as well as coaches and umpires. If you are interested in playing or helping, take a look at their website https://www.elycityhockey.org/ and Facebook page @ElyCityHockeyClub for more information.