This year’s Berkshire Development Centre (DC) program for U13 and U14 Girls and Boys will start with a number of Summer Camps which will provide DC training and assessment, after which selected players will continue with the DC program in the Autumn. Players who graduate from DC to Academy Centre (AC) will be playing competitive matches against other counties in early 2026. (For more details see below).
The planned Camp date and locations are:
Each camp will run for 3 days, starting at 10:00am (Registration will be from 9:30am) and finishing at 15:00pm (Last collection by 15:30pm). Your child may participate in more than one Summer DC Camp if they would like.
We plan to set the fees for Summer DC Camps at £110, which is broadly in line with other Counties. The Fees for the Autumn training sessions will consequently be reduced to reflect the reduced number of sessions.
If you are interested in your son or daughter attending, please let us know as soon as possible. This is not a commitment, but it will help us to plan our Summer Camp Program. We will need Name of child, Age Group (e.g. U14B) and the date(s) you are interested in. Please send this information by email to bharegistrar@gmail.com. We have some financial assistance available, please let us know if you wish to discuss this. We do want to try to make participation possible for every qualifying child.
We expect to start taking live bookings from 24 April 2025 and, if you have expressed an interest, we will send you booking details before that date.
Background
We are planning to run the Berkshire Development Centre (DC) program differently in 2025-26. The DC program is the first step on the Berkshire County Player Pathway after club and school hockey and is for committed and enthusiastic players who want to take their hockey to the next level. Players who complete the DC program may then be selected for the Academy Centre (AC) program and will be playing competitive matches against other counties in early 2026.
The dates for these fixtures are set by England Hockey and in recent years the timing of these matches has moved earlier and earlier. We are finding that, on our traditional DC / AC timetable, there is insufficient time for our young players to build cohesive teams. To address this, we have decided to run the Summer DC Camps which help bring the whole cycle forward and give the teams more time to bond.
This year we will be starting the DC program with Summer Camps for U13 and U14 girls and boys, but expect to extend that to other age groups next year. Our young players will receive intensive coaching during the Camps and the Coaches will have a good opportunity to assess them.
We expect that most of these players will be invited to continue training on Friday evenings in our DC program in the Autumn when we will then be running a further 3 or 4 training sessions for these age groups as a lead up to final selection for the AC program.
For those selected to go on to AC, we will then be able to start the AC program earlier so that the players are better prepared for the inter-County matches.
While we are looking for promising young players to enter the DC program, the Summer DC Camps will be open to anyone in the appropriate age range who are keen to demonstrate their ability and hope to be able to play for County.
We look forward to providing some great hockey coaching and lots of fun over the long Summer break and hope your child will be able to participate.
