Appropriately enough for someone who has been with Stroud Hockey Club for 21 years, Dan Clifford has been key to much of their success.

The 33-year-old club captain has been forced to take on a non-playing role this season after snapping his Achilles tendon but he is still heavily involved with a club that this year are celebrating their 90th anniversary.

“Yes, it’s been a bit frustrating,” he admitted, “I don’t think I’ll play at all this season. I’m still there for all the games though and I help to coach and manage the team.

“I’m a qualified coach and also coach the youngsters on Tuesday evenings.”

Clifford has been captain of the club for “four or five years” and is keen to continue in the role in 2018/19, even though Matt Waite has stepped up this season and is doing “very well”.

“He’s been my vice-captain for a couple of years,” Clifford added. “He’s an older, steadying head.”

The first team won promotion to De Cymru and Marches 1 at the end of last season and, insists Clifford, “the performances have been better than the results this season.”

Clifford says that new coach Graham Cartmel has played a big part in masterminding some of their better displays.

“He’s made a wonderful impression,” said Clifford. “He’s improved everybody’s individual play. He’s played and coached at a high level.”

Clifford has built himself a pretty impressive CV over the years as well, after taking up the sport in the mid-1990s in the days when there were no junior set-ups at clubs.

“I used to go along to Stroud with my uncle Ian Spindler,” he explained. “He used to play in the first team as a sweeper when he was younger. He’s retired now but when I started he was in the second team and I used to play alongside him.

“I’d play anywhere they told me but I was mainly a right-back back then.”

In those days the club only ran two senior men’s teams – Clifford also played a bit of hockey at Archway School – but he was soon making an impression because by his mid-teens he had forced his way into Stroud’s first team.

His hockey education reached a new level when he went to university in Manchester, where he was lucky enough to play in the national league.

He learned a lot during that time, and he admitted he thought long and hard about which club to join after he’d finished his studies and returned to this area.

“In the end I went back to Stroud,” he said. “They were my home club and I’d picked up quite a lot of knowledge while I was away, which I thought would be nice to pump into my local club.”

While in Manchester, Clifford had played at full-back but he was, by choice, a forward and that is the position he has played since returning south.

“Every season I score a reasonable amount of goals,” he said. “I always get to 15 and a couple of seasons I’ve reached 30.”

That’s not bad going at all when you consider that there are only 22 league games a season, so how would Clifford describe himself as a player?

“At the moment, I wouldn’t,” he chuckled, “but when I’m playing I’d say I was pretty quick and fairly direct.”

And how would he describe himself as a captain?

“I believe I’m a people person,” he said. “It’s all about having a happy ship. We’ve got a huge age range in the first team from 16-year-old Callum King to Steve Shipp who is 46.

“Some of the younger guys are very skilful and the older guys have the knowledge. When you get those assets working together we do play some wonderful hockey. It’s a balancing act.

“They’re a good bunch of lads and we play to a good standard. It’s something I take a bit of pride in.”

So how far can Stroud Hockey Club go?

“I think we can go to the next level which would be North division,” said Clifford. “But I think that’s our limit for the moment until we can establish a fourth team at the club.

“If we could do that, that would push the second and thirds up the divisions and give us greater strength in depth which is what we need.”

Clifford will play an important role in helping to make that happen of course.

Brought up in Slad, he now lives in Brimscombe with his wife Simone, who plays netball for Churchdown, and their four-year-old daughter Sophie.

Young Sophie has taken a bit of interest in hockey – she trains at Stroud on Tuesday evenings under the watchful eye of her proud dad.

Mind you, Simone shouldn’t give up on her playing netball at some stage because Sophie is clearly a bit of a sporting all-rounder, even in her very early years.

“We’re fairly hands-on,” chuckled her dad. “She’s been playing with the rugby tots at Deer Park since she was two-and-a-half and she also does a bit of tennis. She loves it!”