Cheltenham Hockey Club have come a long way in the past 10 years – and there could be more to come.

The club will be competing in National League Conference West for the eighth season in a row in 2017/18 and are the only team in Gloucestershire to play at this level, just one rung below the elite premier division.

Cheltenham finished sixth out of 10 in the season just gone and, says club official and ex-player Mike Byrd, they will be looking to push on in the next few seasons.

“We’ve established ourselves in this division and obviously at some stage we’d love to be in a position to go for promotion,” said Byrd. “That’s the aim for every team in the division.

“It’s a big ask because it’s a big jump to the premier division just in terms of finance as a lot of clubs pay their players at that level.”

Byrd said the club’s solid season was based around a good core of players such as midfielder and utility player Tom Cole, captain and midfielder Peter Duffy and defender Johnny Bryan.

It’s not only Cheltenham who are in good shape, according to Byrd. He believes the sport as a whole is sitting pretty in this country after the Olympic Games gold-medal winning performance by the Great Britain women’s team last year.

“There’s more money coming into the game,” he said. “The game is in transition, a bit like rugby was a few years ago when it went from amateur to professional.

“Holcombe are almost full-time and then there’s the Indian Premier League where players can make decent money.”

Cheltenham do not pay their players although they do provide “support” for players who live further away from the club.

Founded in 1887, the club have five men’s teams – the first team are coached by ex-player Lee Robson – and the ladies have four teams, with another former player, Simon Padley, looking after the first team.

The women’s team have been in transition this season but Byrd has seen enough to believe they will be pushing for a return to the National League next season after a solid campaign in West Premier League.

“We lost a few players and brought a few new ones in and after a slow start they have come on quite strong,” Byrd said.

There will be a different captain next season as Rachel Owen is standing down but the club will be hoping that the likes of Megan Brazil and Maisie Robertson can continue their good form of this season. Both were also selected to represent England Universities this year.

Byrd, meanwhile, has been around the club for more years than he cares to remember. So long, in fact, that he remembers playing against Sean Kerly and Imran Shiwani - two of Great Britain’s 1988 Olympic Games gold medal-winning heroes.

While Kerly’s goalscoring heroics captured the imagination of many, it is Shiwani, who was playing for Leek, who Byrd has most vivid memories of coming up against.

“He turned me inside out,” he said. “It made me feel very humble to play against such a great man and to see first-hand just how good these players were.”