NUHC 2001-2005

Northern History | History

 

Northern United has always had a good spirit, but 2001 and 2002 were great years socially and competitively. This spirit is measured by teams winning grades, a membership boost and the entrance of new teams in Wellington open grades.

Top story: Celebrations were overwhelming for the club and the Premier One Men's team who won three Wellington Championships in 2001,2002, 2003 and came within a stroke of securing a fourth in 2004.

The Club had strived for decades to achieve even one title and after years of development at the junior level and the fostering of players by many past coaches and managers we have been rewarded with three. The newly formed Reserve 3 Men's team also did well, making their final and winning a promotion relegation game to move up a grade for the 2003 season.

The Veterans team also won their grade in both 2002 and 2004. The senior womens team advanced two grades in two years, becoming the first NUHC club team in many years to play in the Premier Two womens grade.

The depth of the club also improved with the addition of a second womens team in 2003. It's great to see the rejuvenation of the women's side of the club.

The Junior Girls' ended the 2001 season on a high note by winning the Wellington Primary Girls' A grade competition. This was the first time an NUHC Junior Girls' team had won the 'A' Grade for 20 years.

By negotiation the junior side of the club formed the Northern United Junior Hockey Club Inc. and became functionally and financially responsible for its own destiny on 1 October 2002.

The intention being that both groups will work together as necessary for the purposes of unity in the suburbs for the betterment of hockey.

The club was very lucky to start the 2001 season with the sound accounting skills and organisational prowess of Adam Tankersley as Treasurer, and a largely new and enthusiastic Executive committee.

2003 started with a stutter, with the management committee in disarray due to the loss of key members at the end of 2002 to retirements and overseas relocations. With no committee being elected at the AGM, there was a possibility (albeit small) that the club would have to be wound up.

Fortunately, a number of new people made themselves available to help run the club. Although the new committee was very inexperienced, thanks to hard work and the help of Rex Manning and the trustees, it has grown to the point where we now have a very strong committee in 2005.

The club has faced some major challenges during the last few years. From an administration point of view, the most significant challenge has been the change in the funding model for sports clubs. The net result of legislation introduced in 2002 (which saw control of these funds to switch from bars to a number of charitable trusts) is that the club now competes for funding with a much larger group of non-profit organisations.

To date, the club has been quite successful with this new model. However, the club is very dependent on one charitable trust in particular (New Zealand Community Trust) and there is still the risk that as more organisations become aware that they can apply for funding the amount of NUHC receives could drop substantially. As a result, the committee is constantly seeking ways to increase and diversify it's source of income.

Communication has also proven to be a challenge. The club has no central base of operations such as clubrooms, and each team tends to play at vastly different times during the weekend. In the past, the main means of communication has been printed newsletters, with varying success.

However, through the hard work of Julian Clarke and Andrew Slade, the club has had a website www.northernunited.org.nz in operation since early 2004, and this is helping to bridge the gap between the teams.

Social functions also help in this regard, but have only had mixed success during this period. A lack of coaches has been a problem since the late 1990s when Jan Borren stopped coaching the Premier One Mens team, and continues to be a problem now.

Although some teams (notably the womens teams) have been lucky enough to have coaches, most do not. This seems to be a problem throughout the clubs in the Wellington region, and possibly reflects the fact that players are tending to retire from the sport younger, and are making a clean break from hockey, rather than helping with coaching or moving down the grades.

As a result, the Premier Two team is suffering greatly from a lack of experienced players and has dropped - for this season at least - into Premier Three.

The overall problem is not an easy one to fix, but must be addressed by the club to ensure that the effects do not flow on to the P1 team as has happened in the Karori and Tawa clubs recently.

However, it goes without saying that the most notable achievement is that accomplished by the club itself, in celebrating its 75th Jubilee in 2005.

Written by Travis Wood and Paul Hosking

 

Next>>

More History Articles

Article Archives