Hockey umpires, coaches upgrade skills

The Ghana Hockey Association (GHA) in collaboration with the International Hockey  Federation(FIH), UK Sport and the Africa Hockey Federation is organising a six-day workshop for umpires and coaches in Accra.

A total of 75 Level 1 and 2 coaches, as well as 45 umpires at the foundation and advanced levels  from Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cote d’ Ivoire, Nigeria and  Cameroun, are participating in the workshop designed to improve their capacity more meaningfully.

The workshop, which is being sponsored by UK Sport and the FIH, is also designed to improve the skills of the Ghana national female hockey team with the view of turning them into a winsome side for them to qualify for future international tournaments.

The workshop is dubbed “Technical Assistance Programme (TAP) West Africa Hockey  Project” and is expected to run for two years to enable the participants adapt to  the technicalities of the sport.

As part of the workshop, the sponsors will distribute a number of hockey sticks and other equipment to hockey teams in the country to motivate them to focus on their training.

The resource persons are  Darren Cheesman and Mark Jarvis from England, Michel Mirren (Belgium) and Siegfried Aikman from the Netherlands.

Addressing the participants, the president of the GHA, Mr Richard Akpokavie, said since the workshop was a learning process, it was important for the participants to be very focused to acquire the requisite skills necessary to develop the sport in the subregion.