New season, new start for Bourton and Sherborne Hockey Club as they look forward to fewer hours spent on the busy roads up and down the country.

That’s because the club, which runs four adult teams, has switched to the GoCrea8 League after playing in the MBBO League last season.

‘MBBO’ stands for Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire so you don’t need a sat-nav to know that away games could involve a lot of travelling for the club.

Bourton and Sherborne run one men’s team and three ladies’ teams as well as a Vixens team for under-16 girls and a team of Badgers for boys under-16.

Sean Clarke will be part of the men’s team that plays in Marches 2 of the GoCrea8 League this season and said: “Last season we could be going to Heathrow to play British Airways or to West Hampstead in north-west London but this year we’ll be playing Winchcombe and some of the lower sides from clubs like Cheltenham, Lansdown and Cirencester.

“We had a good season in 2016/17 and came third in their Division Seven but we really wanted to cut down on the amount of travelling we have to do. We want to encourage more players to the club and it’s much easier to do that if they’re not spending much of their Saturday in a car.”

Attracting new players to the club is, of course, very important and as well as the Badgers and the Vixens, the club have a thriving youth section that meets up on Wednesday evenings during the season.

“We can have anything from 40 to 70 kids from the ages of 7-8 to 13-14 turn up to our training sessions on the astroturf at Cotswold School,” said Clarke.

Keeping them interested is obviously key to how long they will remain with the club and last season the club took part in, and organised, a number of under-11 competitions for boys and girls.

That will continue and they are looking to arrange more friendlies this season as well.

“There is only so much training the kids can do” Clarke said. “They need to play matches so that they can develop their skills.”

The adult league season doesn’t start until the end of September and Clarke, who plays right-back or left-back, is confident that the ladies’ flagship team – as well as the men – will hit the ground running in their new competition.

“The ladies have been doing really well,” he said. “They’ve got some good youngsters coming through. One of them is Lydia Harding and she’s a demon in the penalty area, she’s a real goalscorer.”

There will be no excuses if the club do make a slow start to the new campaign, however, because quite a few of the players kept their eye in the over the summer by playing in the Gloucester Mixed League.