The Namibia Hockey Union will stage its annual development tournament in Windhoek on Saturday when about 400 children from six regions throughout the country will be in action. At a press conference in Windhoek on Tuesday, Erwin Handura of the NHU said this was a slight improvement on the turnout at the 2008 tournament.
“Last year we had about 350 children from five regions, while six regions will participate in this year’s tournament,” he said.
The children will participate in Under 12 and Under 14 age group categories for boys and girls, while the participating regions are Khomas, Oshana, Omaheke, Erongo, Kavango and Caprivi which is this year’s newcomer. The Khomas region will enter two teams in the tournament – a north and a south Khomas team.
This year’s tournament will not be sponsored by MTC as in the past, but according to the NHU’s vice president Randy Slabbert they will make use of development funds received from the Namibia Sport Commission. Besides that they also successfully applied for a developmental grant from the International Hockey Federation, which disbursed 5 000 Swiss Franc (about N$40 000) to the NHU.
Namibia unimpressive at IPT tourneys
Slabbert also gave feedback on Namibia’s participation at the South African Inter Provincial B tournament which took place earlier this month. Namibia’s national women’s team finished sixth out of 10 teams while the men’s team finished eighth out of 10 teams.
Last year the women’s team finished third, but Slabbert said that he was happy with the performance bearing in mind that Namibia fielded a very young team.
“There were seven school girls in our team and they performed admirably, bearing in mind that two matches, against Mpumalanga and South Africa Country Districts, we only lost by a single goal,” he said.
Namibia played five matches, winning two and losing three. They beat Free State 7-1 and Northern Cape 4-2 while they lost to Mpumalanga (2-1), SA Country Districts (2-1) and Border (4-1).
Namibia’s men’s team participated in the IPT for the first time in more than a decade and their lack of experience at this level was clearly exposed.
They lost 14-1 to Witwatersrand in their opening match, before suffering further defeats to South African Country Districts (6-1), Eastern Province (3-1) and Northern Cape (9-4). Namibia’s only victory came against Mpumalanga (4-2).
Upcoming tournaments in 2010
Slabbert said that Namibia would be involved in several international hockey tournaments in 2010.
They include the U17 Junior Olympic Qualifiers which take place in East London, South Africa on 21-28 February, which has already drawn teams from top African hockey nations like the hosts South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
Besides that, Namibia has been awarded the right to stage the first ever African Indoor Cup tournament, the date and venue of which must still be confirmed.
Next year Namibia will once again host the SADC Tri-Nations tournament against Botswana and Zimbabwe, while Malawi has also shown an interest to participate, according to Slabbert.
“We will also participate in the South African IPT on an annual basis which will provide our senior players an opportunity to participate at a higher competitive level,” he said.
Slabbert said the NHU was aiming to become more professional and was busy upgrading its clubhouse with the view of generating more funds.
“We have built an office and will appoint a full time employee shortly. We hope to generate funds throughout the year by renting out our clubhouse to companies for workshops or functions, while other codes have also expressed interest in using our facilities. The demand for hockey fields is extremely high – we have four fields but are busy developing a fifth one,” he said.
Slabbert however said that plans to build an artificial turf have not developed much.
“We have to get an artificial turf, because we have a major disadvantage when playing abroad where all tournaments take place on artificial turf. But we still don’t have any firm commitment regarding funding for such a project,” he said.