Teams from Pembroke and Southampton joined Spectrum Angels, London Ladies, UK Barbarian Ladies and the newly formed Wahili Warriors in an "all Ladies" Tournament. Spectrum Angels won the day, with Southampton 2nd and "The Men" 3rd (possibly should have been called 'Team Martin' as every other team member was a Martin!). A jubilant Pembroke came 4th, Wahili Warriors 5th, UK Barbarians Ladies 6th and London Ladies 7th.
| Pembroke | Southampton |
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| ???, ???, Penny Simon, ??? Jen Griffiths, Sian Deller, ???, ??? |
???, ???, Sarah Liscoe, Karen ???, Janet Spence |
A splendid curry was then consumed by 40 hungry octopush players. Our thanks go to The Shanghi for accommodating us all and for staying open until after 1pm when we all finally left. Our thanks go to Susie Brown, and to Claire and Steve Ash, for their involvement in organising a great day.
Congratulations to Pembroke for organising an excellent all ladies tournament. Four teams took part and all said how much they enjoyed the day. Swansea won the tournament, having fought off a determined Spectrum Angels in the play-offs. The play-off for 3rd and 4th place was closely contested and finally won by Northampton, putting Pembroke into 4th place.
Penny Simon, who was the main organiser, managed to gain sponsorship for this tournament from L'Oreal (UK), Vogue of Haverfordwest, Wisebuys of Pembroke, and Messrs David Mason. Well done to Penny for getting the sponsorship, and our thanks to the sponsors for their support.
Photos are now available on the Photo Album page from the author.
As part of this meeting the GB Womens manager was selected. Antoine Mourad was elected as overall manager of all the UK Teams, and Zoe Chester was elected as the UK Womens Elite co-manager. The co-manager for the UK Womens Masters Team and coaches for all the teams have as yet to be confirmed.
Antoine will be sending a letter and form to all women via the regional co-ordinators to ascertain which individuals are interested in being selected for the national squads (elite or masters). Antoine says in his letter " You can assure the women who want to be considered, that the format this year is different and will not involve travelling too often to places for training, but will be more demanding on the personal fitness level training. All will be announced once we know the numbers of women interested." All women based in the U.K. and playing for teams that are part of the BOA are eligible for selection. If you are interested and have not received a form then contact your regional co-ordinator or email Antoine Mourad.
Another session for women was organised. Although again at fairly short notice, we had 18 women attend. The 3 hour session was split into 1 hour of "dry" training and 2 hours in the water. The dry session included discussions on types of pushers for the newer women to the sport (a couple had been playing just 6 weeks) and issues on how we can all improve our play and skills. Claire will be sending out recommendations and training schedules to all link people to send to you - they will be posted on the web as soon as I receive them!
The 2 hours in the water was spent undertaking puck skills and playing all-women games. Everyone came out of the water saying how much they thoroughly enjoyed the game and the skills training. The next training session is planned for 4 to 6 weeks time - venue as yet to arranged.
We are looking for someone who would be willing to take on and organise these sessions (i.e booking of the pool and liasing with Claire/regional link people). Anyone willing to take this on please contact myself, or Claire Straiton on 01252 712632.
Pics of the session will be posted shortly, kindly provided by Keith Hadland.
A group of women came together at a weeks notice to discuss Underwater Hockey and where the womens game should go.
It was decided, amongst other things, that each region should have a "caretaker" - someone who should be the regional contact for women to assist in arranging tournaments and GB or ladies training. This way one person only needs to contact a small group of people. Most women should now have had a letter from a regional contact. If you have not received any information or know of someone who may have been overlooked, please contact myself and I will pass the information on.
The regional contacts for each area are Zoe Chester for Eastern and Central, Suzie Brown for Southern, Libby Portious for Scotland, Mary Nunn for London and Romney Cottam for Wales and South West. We are still looking for contacts for the North West and the North East. Please contact myself or Zoe if you are interested in taking on this role.
It was also decided that we should try to hold more training sessions for women in a variety of locations around the U.K. How regular this should be was discussed at great length - once a month at a different pool appeared to be popular. Further developments in this area will be passed on by the regional contact.
Another decision was to begin a quarterly newsletter for women. This newsletter would give out all training dates and times along with any tournament information etc. If anyone has anything to submit, then they could pass this to their regional contact or contact me and I will pass it on. All articles will be gratefully received! I hope to be able to reproduce the newsletter on this website along with anything else useful to women's Octopush.
After the meeting womens games were played at Spectrum pool for one and a half hours. For some, this was the first time they had played in an all women game. More meetings are hoped to be organised.
The GB squad took two womens teams to the World Championships in San Jose, California.
The GB Womens Elite team came 8th overall in a very competitive and growing division of the championships. New teams were entered this year from The Philippines and Argentina. The gold medal was won by South Africa, the silver by Australia and the bronze by USA.
A new division of the championships was the Womens Masters. The GB Womens Masters were entered and secured a bronze medal behind South Africa and USA.
Photographs from the world championships are now available on the Photo Album page, kindly provided by Martin Reed and the author.
The womens section at the National Championships saw six teams entered this year. This made for an exciting and energetic competition which everyone enjoyed and which was encouraging for the future of womens Octopush.
The results can be seen at Martin's ever famous website under 
Photos from the Championships can be found on the Photo Album page.
This page is maintained by Clanger. Last updated 25th October, 1998.
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