New name and lots of ambition, Bishop’s Cleeve Hockey Club certainly have plenty to play for in the weeks, months and years ahead.

Previously known as Cleevillians – this is their first season as Bishop’s Cleeve – the aim of the game is to establish greater links with the village of their origin, as well as enjoy continued success on the pitch of course.

The playing side is going pretty well and at the time of writing they were top of The Marches 2 League, but that is not the only driving force for a club who were originally known as Smiths Industries Hockey Club when they were founded way back in 1942.

They were formed out of the old Smiths Industries factory in Bishop’s Cleeve – the company is now known as GE Aviation – and played their home matches on the grass at Newlands, which these days is home to Cheltenham Rugby Club.

Nowadays, the hockey club play their home games on the artificial pitch at Plock Court in Gloucester and while they are more than happy with the facilities there, it’s not a place that they can really call ‘home’.

For a start it’s more than 11 miles from Bishop’s Cleeve where the newly named hockey club would like to establish much stronger roots.

“We’re the same club but we’ve just got a different name this season,” said long-serving player Rob Link. “We’re pushing to try to get our own home in Cleeve, engaging with Cleeve School, local businesses and the community in general and in so doing promoting the role that hockey can play in nurturing an active population, young and old.

“We’re working with Cleeve School and Tewkesbury Borough Council to try to get funding for an artificial pitch at the school, and if not there somewhere else in the village. Having a pitch for training and home games that we can call home would be a magnificent goal to achieve.

“Most of our current team still work at GE Aviation.”

Apart from a three-year spell with Cheltenham, Link has been with the club since 1983 when he joined what was then Smiths Industries.

Whisper it quietly but he’d never actually played hockey for Loughborough University before he took a job at the company as an embodiment loan officer – that’s a clerical position! – and only said he did because he thought it would enhance his chance of getting a full-time job!

It did, of course, and Link, a natural sportsman who has just completed his 36th consecutive year at GE Aviation, scored the winning goal on his debut in his first ever game of hockey for the club against local rivals Lansdown.

“My team-mates believed that they had just witnessed the coming of the ‘special one’, he laughed, “but I think they soon realised that I hadn’t actually been playing hockey for as long as I had declared on my Smiths job application form!

“In my younger years, I was a keen, active participant in most sports and in particular enjoyed football, cricket and tennis.

“I was particularly successful as a goalkeeper in football and was lucky enough to play for Loughborough University against the then European champions Nottingham Forrest which included many of their stars including Trevor Francis.”

Link was unable to play weekend football once he started playing hockey regularly but he said: “I continued to play goalkeeper in competitive five-a-side football tournaments, winning numerous trophies in the Cheltenham Club, Smiths and Dowty tournaments.”

And he certainly has no regrets about devoting much of his adult sporting life to hockey.

“Hockey has been the most enjoyable sport I have played,” said the recently-turned 58-year-old, who is a former captain of the club. “It’s a bit like rugby, it’s a game where there is tremendous respect on the field, which is important when you carry a swinging implement and have a solid ball that travels excessive speeds.

“The game itself, is very fast, it is faster than football and certainly much faster than cricket.

“But the biggest thing is the hockey fraternity, with a healthy mix of ages and sexes, where everyone is friendly and you get to know many players from other clubs.

“The longevity of playing careers also promotes members of the same family playing in the same team and I have played numerous competitive games over the last 10 years alongside my son Ben and daughter Lauren.

“In August this year, with Ben as captain, all three of us competed for GE Aviation in the European Corporate Games, coming away with the silver medal.”

And it really is a family affair because Link’s youngest daughter Libby is a keen supporter of both her dad’s and siblings’ hockey accompanied the GE team to the corporate games as their photographer.

Link has also been organising his club’s tour to the Easter Torbay Hockey Festival since 2005, an annual ritual that the club has been doing for the last consecutive 68 years. The tour party can include up to 50 people, including wives, children and former players.

Link also organised the local Vic Mathews Mixed Memorial hockey tournament from 2005 until its close in 2012, helping to raise a few thousand pounds for cancer research. He collaborated with Cleeve School, GE Aviation and Bishop’s Cleeve football club to ensure up to 12 local clubs were able to compete on a traditional grass surface.

Bishop’s Cleeve, meanwhile, are running just the one team at the moment – they have a squad of 17 – but the aim is to field a second side, if not next season then in a couple of years’ time.

It would be easier to attract new faces if they were to return home, of course, but they are certainly doing well enough this season under the captaincy of midfielder Andy Jarvis.

And there’s certainly no shortage of experience in the squad because in addition to Link they have Tony Pierce and Neil Flanagan who are both in their 60s and Tony Griffin who is 70-plus.

Griffin first started playing for the club for some 50 years ago and Link commented: “He doesn’t play like in he’s in his 70s.”

Link, a former St Benedict’s and Cheltenham Grammar School pupil, moved from Hong Kong to Gloucestershire is his early teens and has a degree in both Human Biology and Law.

“For the hockey club, I’ve played in every position on pitch, including goalkeeper,” said Link, who lives in Cheltenham. “Today I tend to play more in attack but can see myself hanging up my stick in the next five years as age and fitness catches me up.

His son Ben is a former player and captain at the club who is now playing and captaining Gloucester City’s first team, so when Link does finally retire, he will at least be assured that the family tradition of playing hockey will continue into the future – his father Bob Link also played hockey for the Army in Hong Kong.

There’s certainly plenty for Bishop’s Cleeve to play for on the pitch as well as off it.

“With the top two from our division going up, promotion is definitely the aim,” added Link.