Scottish Hockey and The University of Edinburgh have announced a landmark partnership to establish a new Centre of Excellence.
The Scottish national women’s and men’s teams will relocate their permanent training base to the Peffermill Playing Fields in Scotland’s Capital city, utilising the world-class facilities both at Peffermill and in the Pleasance Sports Complex.
The partnership includes a significant investment by the University, having recently appointed SPORTEX (with Polytan) to lay a new state-of-the-art artificial turf pitch on Hockey Pitch 2.
This enhancement underscores the university’s commitment to supporting elite hockey performance.
Mark Munro, the university’s director of sport and active health, said: “The University continues to focus on hockey as one of our priority sports and has a long tradition of student-athlete players progressing to both Scottish and British teams.”
An example is Borders-born Sarah Robertson’s selection for Paris later this month, having previously won a bronze medal in Tokyo.
Chris Duncan, head coach of Scotland women, said: “We are delighted to be able to come to this agreement of a partnership between The University of Edinburgh and Scottish Hockey.
“Their world-class facilities, desire for continuous development, and exceptional level of client service are a brilliant asset to us as we look to achieve our ambitions in the years ahead.
“We look forward to having Peffermill and The University of Edinburgh as a base for our performance programmes which will support our athletes and our programme.”
PICTURE: Scotland star Bronwyn Shields on the ball during a recent national squad session at Peffermill. Picture by Nigel Duncan
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