A week past Sunday saw Kelso Hockey Club travel to Glasgow to participate for the first time in the club’s history in Scottish Hockey’s U16 Boys Club Cup. This is an annual competition that brings the strongest boys teams from across the country together to see who’s best!

We knew from the outset that this would be a tall order but we wanted to provide our club players the opportunity to play the very best in their age group. By fielding such a young squad, predominantly U14 players, the experience can only bode well for the future of this talented group of players.

The format of the day saw two pools of four/five teams play out fixtures within their groups with the top two from each pool facing off against the other pool’s top two teams in semifinals at the end of the day - the final is played in March 2026.

Kelso were drawn in a pool of five teams so as a minimum had four games to play which went some way to make the long trip across to Glasgow worth our while.

Game 1: Grange 6 - Kelso 0
Our first game against Grange was a tough opening fixture. As with all the other teams most fielded strong U16 players, so we were up against it from the off. Had we played Grange at the end of the day the scoreline might not have been so big.

Game 2: Kelso 2 - Inverleith 4
With our first game under our belts and knowing how strong the opposition were going to be we settled into our next fixture against Inverleith. Always staying in touch by a goal or two this would be one of our more closely fought games. Our goalscorers were Myles Whiteside and Chris Alton.

Game 3: Uddingston 3 - Kelso 1
After a prolonged break in games we took to the pitch to face our first Glasgow based side in Uddingston. Having taken some positives from the previous fixture we again stayed within touching distance of the opposition, Myles Whiteside was on the scoresheet once again.

Game 4: Hillhead 4 - Kelso 1
Our final game was against the competition’s defending champions who were unsurprisingly a strong Glasgow outfit. We had our chances but we were never going to come out on top of this last fixture. Our goalscorer in this game was Murray Banks.

Notable mentions should go to Toby Anderson (S5), who was eligible to play for us in this U16 Club Cup competition and was invaluable on the day. And also to Mac Banks (S1) our youngest squad player who had an inspired day in goal for us.

We performed admirably given this was our first taste of a national boys competition, and went beyond all expectations. We did ourselves proud, drew many compliments from opposition coaching staff, and have a fantastic platform to build on for the rest of the season and develop ahead of next year’s Club Cup.

U16 Boys Club Cup Squad: C. Alton; T. Anderson; M. Banks (GK); M. Banks; R. Fleming; T. Grant; A. Little; J. Moir; R. Patterson; F. Pennington; C. Quinn; A. Scott; M. Whiteside; J. Wilson (Capt.).