St Albans Flyerz is a disability project which aims to make hockey available to all via inclusive sessions, supported by volunteers from SAHC.

Story so far:
Week-day, term-time based successful sessions were originally trialled with Oaklands College Landmark and Springfield Supported Learning and Internship programmes in June 2015. The following season, St Albans Flyerz was established as a permanent and valuable section of the club. We now have sessions on a weekly basis, subject to the weather! We are looking to build and develop the group, so we welcome new players at any time.

“We are part of the club, and lots of our Flyerz volunteers are from the club - players, coaches, children and parents. They always have a great time helping to coach the Flyerz and they join in our games. Everybody comes away smiling” says Simon Gould, one of the founders of St Albans Flyerz HC.

Since then, the Flyerz have expanded to include children and young adults from not just St Albans, but all of the surrounding area. “There has been so much support for our Flyerz, from within the club, including its benefactors and sponsors, and additional support from Access Sport who provided free training for coaches and other support while we were setting up. We were also extremely creative in sourcing and adapting equipment, for example by running a ‘stick amnesty’ and other schemes at the club and this has allowed us to keep the sessions completely free of charge for every participant,” says Itziar Olaberria, previous Flyerz Lead coach.

And charities such as Remap, which designs and manufactures custom-made equipment to help people with disabilities live more independent lives, kindly designed a grip so that one of the players, Charlie, could hold his stick more easily. Charlie says, "Having my stick adapted has made it much easier for me to push myself, whilst playing hockey, so I don't have to rely on anyone else.”

In the past, the SAHC Flyerz has reached out to nearby SEND schools and units, including running introductory sessions to hockey and sharing their love of the sport. We're hoping to start these up again in the future, with the support of more volunteer coaches - the sessions were always great fun, not only for the participants, but for the coaches to run too!