Hockey

Momentum Namibia awarded the Namibia Hockey Union (NHU) with a sponsorship of N$200 000 which will go towards the hosting of the Momentum National Schools Hockey Challenge.

The tournament will be held from 8 to 10 September at the Doc Jubber Hockey Fields in Olympia.

30 schools from Windhoek, Walvis Bay, Oranjemund, Keetmanshoop and Gobabis are expected to take part in the U14 to U18 age categories.

President of the NHU, Jesse Schickerling said the tournament is aimed at showcasing hockey and identifying talented players, particularly from the other regions in Namibia.

Windhoek High School’s first girls hockey team concluded a great season by beating Windhoek Gymnasium 5-3 on Saturday to win the Namibian Schools Hockey league for the 14th year in a row.

The statistics for the year 2011 indicates that the team played attractive attacking hockey by scoring a lot of goals. The team played 42 games in Namibia and in South Africa in the 2011 season and scored 203 goals, with only 12 goals against. The team won 36 matches, drew 4 and lost only 2 matches against top South African sides.

Unam regained top spot on the Field Hockey Men’s Premier League after thrashing Wanderers 7-0 on Saturday.

Wanderers started strongly with Billy Beukes and Francois Fusher making early inroads, but it was Unam who took the lead when Albert Kapungire scored from a counterattack after 8 minutes.

The game was still evenly balanced when Unam went on a goal blitz with three goals in three minutes to effectively settle the result. Kuve Tjikuniva, Dickson Vambe and Heini Isaacks all found the net in a dazzling onslaught of attacking hockey that left Wanderers in disarray.

The president of the African Hockey Federation Seif Ahmed and its treasurer Claire Digby paid a visit to Namibia over the weekend to express its support for Namibian hockey and to try and facilitate its participation at the 2011 African Cup Olympic Games qualifiers which take place in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in September.

Furthermore they also offered Namibia the hosting rights for the U21 African Cup in 2012, if Namibia can build an artificial turf by then.

Saturday’s Men’s Premier League hockey match between Windhoek Old Boys and Unam had to be abandoned after Unam refused to play the match and walked off the field.

At the centre of the controversy is their star striker Siabonga Martins, who had asked for a transfer and wanted to play for WOB against his old club. According to a source Unam demanded N$10 000 for his release but when WOB managed to raise the funds and wanted to pay, Unam refused.

The Namibia School Sport Union’s national Under 18 Girls Hockey side beat some of South Africa’s top provinces to win the U18 category at the South African Inter Provincial Hockey Festival that was held in Bloemfontein, South Africa from July 11 to 14.

Namibia won Pool A by winning their group matches against Western Province, Northern Free State and North West.
By finishing top of their group, Namibia qualified for the semifinals where they beat Amatole Coastals on a penalty shootout.

England was the overall winner of the Mini World Cup hockey tournament that took place at St Pauls on Saturday.

A total of seven teams participated in the tournament that consisted of Windhoek based schools as well as the Hockey CC Academy which is for Katutura and Khomasdal based children.

England, which was represented by St Pauls, also won the Ambassadorial Trophy. The trophy was for the team that had the best song or dance, mascot, brand, tradition and were the most impressive at the opening ceremony.

Spain U14 boys won the Best Team Award.

Defending champions Unam suffered two defeats against Wanderers and DTS in Field Hockey Men’s Premier League matches over the weekend.

On Saturday, Wanderers beat Unam through a goal by Anthonie Koekemoer early in the second half.

Unam pushed hard in the final stages of the game with Joseph Kashamako, Ronaldo Kapuire, Heini Swartbooi, Penda Nambala and Kuve Tjikuniva all coming close to scoring, but Wanderers held out for the victory.

On Sunday, Unam went down 3-1 to DTS.

Namibia’s Under 21 female hockey team finished seventh out of 12 teams at the South African U21 Inter Provincial Tournament in Cape Town which finished last weekend.

It was Namibia’s best performance at the tournament which saw them improving by five positions on their 2010 performance.

According to the team coach Jeanne Davin, the opposing teams were loaded with the best U21 South African players, while some of them are already playing for the senior South African team.

The president of the Namibia Hockey Union Adv Jesse Schickerling has lauded Namibia’s efforts at the Indoor Hockey World Cup, saying that the national men and women’s teams’ performances were very good. He also dismissed negative media reports as uninformed about the progress that Namibian hockey had made.

Namibia’s women’s team finished 10th out of 12 nations after losing 4-1 to Argentina in their positional playoff match last Saturday.