If anyone has ever opened a cupboard, garage, boot room or hockey bag and wondered why they were still hanging on to a stick they hadn’t used since before COVID, they were certainly not alone. In fact, the South Berks Hockey family had been quietly storing a small mountain of hockey equipment in every conceivable corner of Berkshire.

After a long‑overdue expedition into the depths of the club kit rooms, the team uncovered an incredible amount of equipment. Some of it had been carefully stored, some completely forgotten, and some appeared to have entered a witness protection programme years ago. They gathered hockey sticks, goalkeeper kit, training gear, clothing, bags, balls and a wide variety of other hockey essentials that were no longer being used but still had plenty of life left in them.

As tempting as it was to keep expanding the unofficial museum of retired hockey equipment, the club’s kit officer Andrea Dell was determined to find a better solution. That’s where the Kit2Play Foundation came in. This fantastic local charity specialises in collecting unwanted hockey kits and ensuring it finds a new home where it can make a real difference.

Working with Kit2Play, the equipment donated by South Berks HC will now begin an exciting new journey to Ghana. There, access to hockey equipment can often be limited, making even the most familiar items invaluable to players, coaches and clubs. While a stick gathering dust in a garage might seem unremarkable in Berkshire, it can become a treasured piece of equipment for a young player eager to develop their skills and passion for the game.

The club looks forward to following the journey of the equipment and seeing the positive impact it has in Ghana. It is a wonderful reminder that even the oldest stick in the back of a cupboard can still have some great hockey left in it.

We hope to run a further surplus kit collection in September in order to make a second donation to this brilliant cause. More information about the foundation, based in Ascot, can be found on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.