This last Sunday saw our annual Bedford Junior Hockey Tournament. In all 118 matches, 44 teams participating from 9 different Hockey Clubs. 23 hours of hockey was played. There must have been over 450 young participants and many more parents, supporters and coaches attending.

On behalf of the Club, I would like to thank everyone who helped make this happen on the day. The roles were never ending: Timers, scorers, pitch runners, pitch co-ordinators, control room manager, car park management, "Greeters", first aider, umpires etc. An amazing effort to get everything to run to time, with only two minute turn around between matches! Then there were all of our many coaches and squad managers of our 13 Bedford teams at Under 10,12 & 14 age groups. Thanks also go to all the parents and supporters, some I know who took part in the organisation of the day. A big thank you to you all.

It is impossible to mention everyone involved because it was a massive team and club effort. But I would like to thank the Fuller family: Gary, Tracey, Aaron and Nathan who were present throughout the day and controlling between them the match timing, umpiring, first aiding etc.

Secondly a big thank you to Paul, Lisa and family who kept us all fed and watered throughout the day - starting before dawn!

There is another group of young club players that deserve a special thanks and those are the many "senior" juniors within our club. I call them "senior" juniors as they are no longer able to play in the tournament, but having benefitted from everyone's efforts in previous years have now started to give back to the family of the club by helping out on the day. Again I will not mention names, so that I don't disappoint and miss any of you out, but you know who you are and a very big thank you to everyone of you. It is great to see you progressing through the club and committing your free time to the benefit of others within our hockey family.

Finally to the maestro who made the whole tournament happen - Paul Bennell. It was an absolute marathon effort over the last 2-3 months and it is great credit to your planning skills that everything ran so smoothly and essentially on time almost to the minute. A very big thank you Paul from us all.

On the day I heard so many excellent comments from our visiting parents and team managers. I gather that this is one of the largest Junior Club tournaments that is currently run in our area and long may it continue. Paul will be stepping down at the end of the season and we are all very indebted to him. We are looking for a new leader, although I am sure that with his wealth of knowledge and experience that Paul will be very willing to help and advise his successor. You can all be very proud of what everyone achieved last weekend and a final big thank you to you all.