About Nova Hockey Club

Background

Our first training session in 2017

Nova Hockey Club ("Nova" is Latin for "new") was founded in January 2017 which makes it the youngest established hockey club in the greater Tshwane Area.  From the outset our dream was to grow both "sideways" and "upwards" by increasing our membership base while simultaneously gaining promotion to higher leagues – this after we had to start at the bottom, as all new clubs have to.  We are very proud to say that we have been living up to this dream thus far – by the end of our third season we were already the fourth largest club affiliated to the Northerns Blues Hockey Association and our men's and women's first teams had already gained promotion all the way up to the Northerns second league where they are now starting to knock on the door of promotion to premier league.  The COVID pandemic did put a slight damper on our growth but we are now well and truly on a new upward curve!

While we have lots of members who hail from areas as far away as Pretoria's eastern suburbs, Centurion, Brits and Bronkhorstspruit, and will always welcome anyone from anywhere, the club was founded primarily to provide opportunities for people in the northern and western regions of Pretoria to play club hockey, which is why we were originally based at TUT.  In January 2023 we moved our Senior and Youth sections to Hoërskool Oos-Moot in Villieria and in January 2024 our Junior section moved to Hoërskool Wonderboom, thereby extending our reach to the Moot area while also making us much more accessible to people from the eastern parts of Pretoria.

Management

Anita Fourie and Graham Johnson

The club's affairs are overseen by a compact committee, under the chairmanship of Anita Fourie.  After playing hockey at school she lost contact with the sport until, nearly twenty years later in 2019, she happened to watch a hockey match and the bug bit again, resulting in her not only playing again but immersing herself in the club's activities to the extent that she progressed to managing the men's first team, to being elected a committee member, to being elected chairperson.  She claims that she can't really play hockey – she just knows how to step in front of the ball, something which serves her well as goalkeeper!  Off the hockey field Anita has a BTech in computer systems engineering from TUT and has been a software developer since 2004.  In her free time she enjoys DIY around the house and likes a nice braai.  She also likes to collect (or "hoard", as she calls it) LP records.

The day-to-day technical and administrative running of the club is managed by our club director, Graham Johnson, who has a team of dedicated volunteers who assist him.  Graham was introduced to the sport of hockey at high school way back in 1980 and played for the University of Pretoria's first team for a few years in the mid-1980's, at which time he started coaching at the local high school.  After injury and ill health cut short his hockey playing career in 1986 he lost contact with the sport but when his oldest daughter starting playing in 1999, his interest was revived and by 2004 he took up coaching again – and has been involved in club hockey ever since.  He is a SAHA Level 3 coach who has coached at a wide range of skill levels and age groups.  Graham has been accredited by SAHA as a coach educator and was until recently also an active umpire coach & grader.  On the adminstrative side Graham has been involved with a number of clubs and served a few terms on the Northerns executive committee, including a two-year term as the Association's vice president.  In 2023 he was awarded the Northerns trophy for "Administrator of the Year".  After three decades as a self-employed software engineer, he now keeps himself busy with hockey on full-time basis.