Cambridge City's blistering start to new season in Men's Hockey League

Cambridge City have added firepower as they look for history-making season in Men’s Division 1, reports Rod Gilmour of The Hockey Paper.

Kettering Services will see its regular influx of red and white clad hockey players this weekend when a Cambridge City convoy pops in for pre-match refreshments - including the purchase of a good luck chocolate coin.

The motorway stop-off has become a regular haunt with the club stationed in Men’s Division 1 North, while Cambridge City are currently flying high after a blistering start to the season.

Cambridge sit third in the league behind Cardiff & Met and Loughborough Students, the trio all top of the standings on 12 points with four wins from five.

“We should be on 15 points really, as we should have beaten Olton & West Warwickshire in the first game of the season, but we didn’t turn up," says coach Grant Gilmour.

Former England and GB player Nick Thompson had previously taken the club from Div 1 East to the National League, and Cambridge have been at their current level for about a decade.

Cambridge were promoted to Division 1 after winning the Conference East title in 2019/2020, the season cut short due to the pandemic. It means that both Cambridge City men and women sides are one league below the top flight.

Player-coach Gareth Andrew, now at Beeston, took the helm from Thompson before Gilmour, a Cambridge stalwart, came in as head coach at short notice after being recommended by Andrew, as well as the players.

"We have six or seven new players and we kept ourselves in the league last season," adds Gilmour. "This year we have a solid 16, with really good national league experience. I would happily start any of them and there has been a unity I haven’t seen for a while.”

The team bonding has seen the squad use Kettering as its traditional stop at away games - where Scottish striker Duncan Rudd will also make a regular purchase. “Every time he goes there he buys a big chocolate coin and we’ve won every time since,” laughs Gilmour.

Former coach Thompson, he says, would also be celebrated should Cambridge City overturn their university rivals and win the league.

“Nick was a game changer for the club and he put a lot of time and effort into what he wanted to create,” adds Gilmour. “I’m sure there were grumblings for people who wanted it a different way but he got them there. It was just a shame he never quite got them to that Premier Division level, but it’s not easy to do that. He should be remembered for what he’s done.”

Nat Farrant is the current Cambridge City captain and into his sixth season at the club. The Guildford-born 26-year-old, whose younger brother Isaac plays for University of Nottingham, is equally enthused by City’s start.

“We are more of an experienced team in terms of age and maturity,” says Farrant. “We have more depth in the squad now and we are unlucky not to have five from five. We still have Loughborough, Cardiff and Durham to come but it’s been great so far.

“The difference this year is that our team has become quite a social one. People are around on Saturdays watching the 2s, more lads are living in Cambridge and no one is travelling as far which makes a big difference.”

A primary school teacher at the Perse School, he also coaches the men’s 1s and 2s at Cambridge South. “It’s a bit controversial,” smiles Farrant. When he joins his City team-mates, the forward is now part of a squad which has seen more firepower up top after summer signings. Conor Annad has joined from Canterbury where he was a consistent goalscorer, while Rudd, former captain at University of St Andrews, scored the winner at the weekend against Bowdon.

Cambridge City are one of the few clubs in the Men’s Division 1 which has more than one pitch. Their Wilberforce Road base now has three pitches, a clubhouse on site and, being a bike-friendly city, an abundance of two wheels. 

It certainly has a European feel to it after the complex was handed a £2.5 million cash injection a few years ago, thought to be the largest to University sport from private philanthropy after a donation from a local businessman. The club shares facilities with Cambridge University HC after City moved there in 2009.

“When you turn up and it’s bustling with hundreds of players, there is a game going on every pitch and with the Talent Academy and lots of kids here, there is a really good feel at the club,” admits Gilmour. “It’s something we’ve missed for a long time. We had pitches split all over Cambridge previously and now there is a real hockey hub.”

For the first time in a while, the club has ball patrol boys and girls in position for the 1s games, with the junior and senior sections now one entity. As Gilmour says, “It is about development at the bottom and top end of the club and it has progressed in a good way.”

Sunday: University of Birmingham v Cambridge City, 2:30pm