Discipline, goal-setting and commitment key to GCC success over the years

– Coach Phillip Fernandes

The Georgetown Cricket Club’s men’s and women’s Hockey teams have been dominating over the years under the Leadership of National Coach Philiip Fernandes
GCC over the years have been successful over the years coping the 2023 Bounty/Antonio’s Hockey champs against the Woodpecker Hikers Ladies, bagging double gold in the Girls Under-16 and Under-21 divisions of the Paragon Indoor Hockey Championships in Trinidad and Tobago, champions of the ExxonMobil National Indoor Hockey Championships in 2021 and securing three divisions being the Male and Female second division competitions and the Over-35 in 2018.
Head Coach of GCC Phillip Fernandes in an exclusive interview with Guyana Times shared the challenges it has been to achieve the top position and maintain that consistency.

‘I have found that the level of discipline of the athletes definitely affects the results when they compete at least in our club so what happened example the men’s team was hugely successful in the 90s and early 2000s”s winning the great majority of competition they participated in and that success in fact braced to compliancy and so the training frequency started to reduce and the attendance at training started to reduce and players started thinking they can just go into competition and perform at the same level thus starting to taper off the performance and drop the quality of hockey and allowed other clubs back in the door to start to have more success so GCC have tried to stem that tide to return to what they are doing” He said.
Phillip went on to emphasize the growth of Women’s Hockey due to the greater discipline, goal-setting, and commitment to achieve those goals.
“The Women restarted hockey in the early 2000s and in fact were bottom of the barrel and they’re training, and dedication saw them rise to the top. Once they reached the top, they were able to stay there, it had to do with the greater commitment by the Women and their greater competition to get a spot on the team because there was a larger selection pool to select from and there was a lot better practice attendance and a lot more commitment to the skills – training “Phillip emphasized.
THE GCC Club is now participating in the Woodpecker Products Men’s and Women’s First-Division Leagues with GBTI GCC and Bounty GCC Currently sitting on top of their group with both teams undefeated in their two games. (Omar McKenzie)