Buckingham women begin their EuroHockey indoor campaign

Buckingham women begin their EuroHockey indoor campaign on February 22 in Alanya, Turkey, boosted by an inspiring fundraising stint.

Co-captain Lottie Porter helped set up a GoFundMe page after the team qualified for the tournament in September 2023 and was taken aback by the response.

"The hockey community have been absolutely amazing," she said.

"We set a £10,000 target, we hit it and it's still going up. We are hugely grateful to everyone that has donated inluding South Central Hockey who provided the impetus as well as funds.

"We're under no illusions, it's going to be a really tough week for us.

"We've got the German side [Dusseldorfer] and the Belgian side [Royal Racing Club Bruxelles], who I think will have much more of an indoor season than we do in England so we'll relish being underdogs.

"We don't want to be like one hit wonders. We want to go again and we want indoor hockey to get more recognition by what we're doing."

Head coach Kevin Mayles is eager to see how Buckingham's participation in the tournament can help propel indoor hockey to new heights back home.

"Our goal is also to think about how this tournament can help benefit our community in the North Buckinghamshire area," he said.

"We're geographically in an area that traditionally does not play a lot of indoor hockey, so we hope to help grow the sport here."