Southgate's stellar start to the season for its first teams

Rod Gilmour of The Hockey Paper reports on Southgate's great start to the season for its men’s and women’s 1s

When he joined in the summer, new men’s coach Kwan Browne [pictured above] admitted that Southgate were a 'sleeping giant.' The club is now waking from its slumber. Both men’s and women’s 1s sit atop the Division One South and Vitality Women's Conference East respectively after nine straight victories and a winter break to savour.

There is certainly renewed optimism around one of English hockey’s most successful league clubs. While wins have been racked up every weekend, the club is also trying to build narrative and an entertainment package to bring more exposure to the 1s teams.

“It’s been an exciting season so far halfway through,” says Giulio Ferrini, Italy’s British-based midfielder. “It’s a club with such a rich history with all the success in the 80s and 90s. It’s exciting now to have a first team pushing for the club to grow and go on to bigger and better things.

“We’ve had a number of years where the club hasn’t quite clicked to where we wanted to be, so now we are hopefully building towards that.”

Southgate men sit six points clear of rivals Teddington at the halfway mark, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing during their unbeaten run under player-coach Browne, suggesting that there will be hurdles to negotiate come February. For example, earlier this month, they found themselves 1-0 down in the last quarter before a late riposte.

“We have had three of four close games this season where teams have pushed us. Sevenoaks was impressive and everyone trusted their game,” recalls Ferrini. “It was like German international hockey, when you’re down with minutes to go and they are still shifting the ball around and looking for the extra player. It felt like that! In past years we’ve often found ourselves at the wrong end of tight games. This time it felt different.”

Ahead of the men’s and women’s coaches review of the opening half of the season, club secretary Alastair Whatley admitted that it was a “complete turnaround” from when the men’s 1s were in a fight for survival last season.

“We are in a good place and we can entertain the prospect of promotion,” says Whatley. “But Kwan is dealing with keeping players' feet on the ground and not assuming that it will continue this way in the spring. The league is far from done and dusted.

“The trick now is to keep it going. You solve one problem, and you create many more and it’s about how to keep it sustainable and how the club grows all the way through.”

Whatley is responsible for the colourful and packed newsletter 'to create a narrative for club members' and arrest the tradition of just playing matches and going home. “It’s about following the team through the highs and lows and understanding the journey. It is repeated messaging,” adds Whatley, who is also artistic director of the Original Theatre Company.

Whatley says the club is looking at game days not just in hockey but other sports as well to make watching the sport more of an appealing experience. He says: “We’ve seen what Old Georgians were doing and the Surbiton v OGs game had a great atmosphere at the weekend, while hundreds watched Fareham and Havant earlier this season.”

Ferrini is into his 12th season at Southgate, having joined the club when they were yo-yoing from the Premier Division. They were last relegated in 2015 and the 30-year-old is now aiming for another slice of top flight hockey after a change in personnel during Covid and a tough 2021/22 campaign.

“It’s a different energy this time and it’s wonderful to have high expectations and standards,” he adds. “Everyone is coming in pushing each other, and the old guard is setting the right culture.

“We’ve been in this league for several years now and it's such a tough division to win. It’s very easy for players to come in and believe we will smash the league. All it takes is one or two losses and you don’t get promoted.”

The high expectations, says Ferrini, are down to Trinidadian Browne. “He breathes international hockey every day, that’s the standard he expects, it is about technical, physical and mental standards,” admits the Italian. “It’s about understanding that hockey for some people has the luxury of being full-time and for others it’s not the same when it’s game day. 

“That's what takes priority and you have to look after your body. It’s not a matter of coming down to the pitch and doing an hour of running. It’s about intensity and pushing everybody along.”

Ferrini is buoyed by the club's vigour to engage club members with the elite teams. “Sometimes there hasn’t always been a buzz around the team,” he admits. “This season has felt different with people wanting to stay around the club and giving people a reason to stay, be it commentary, music, half-time crossbar challenges etc.

“It breeds a sense of excitement that we are playing for the club and it gives us a reason to play and gives an extra push. Everyone knows those grounds when you go down on a Saturday or Sunday, the ones that are a bit feisty and the ones that are quiet and it almost feels like a home game, so it’s about striking a bit of fear into the opposition.”

Meanwhile, Whatley believes that the coaching addition of Browne, who played for Southgate in 1997/1998, can ignite the club from top down. “He’s a club man and is always around,” he says. “He’s made himself available to anyone. It’s about trying to pass that energy on and get everybody feeling that it’s their team.”