We are delighted to have been selected by England Hockey as a Talent Academy host from the 2024/25 season. The club will take on the hosting of primarily the Birmingham TA catchment from England Hockey (exact details on our specific catchment area will be confirmed shortly). Sutton Coldfield will form part of an expanded group of 24 Talent Academies across England. We will be responsible for the staffing, leadership, governance and day to day operational management and delivery of the Talent Academy.

The Sutton Coldfield Talent Academy will therefore be part of the England Hockey Talent System, supporting juniors with the potential and commitment to make it to the highest level. Talent Academies aim to develop selected players through high quality coaching and holistic athlete development. The Talent Academy provides an additional environment for talented young hockey players to join together and experience high level coaching and competition, in addition to their existing hockey diet at club and school.

A key component of our TA will be the commitment to work proactively with all our catchment clubs, schools and counties, we want to encourage everyone to be included in the nomination processes so we can identify high-potential hockey players able to demonstrate and develop the broad range of technical, tactical, physiological and psychological skills involved in our game, we will place the young player at the centre of what we do, ensuring we focus fully on both their on and off pitch needs.

We therefore encourage all coaches to be active in the nomination process for the next cycle, the current nomination process ends on the 1st May and we would encourage all clubs, schools and counties to submit nominations via Talent Academy Nomination Process and Guidance (englandhockey.co.uk)
.

We will be continuing to update our Talent Academy pages as we proceed with England Hockey on our transition plan, if you have any questions or require further information, please contact either Steve Russell our tadirector@suttoncoldfieldhc.co.uk or Jon Marshall the birminghamtamanager@englandhockey.co.uk