Hockey was established as a Football Foundation Sports code in 2009 due to the tremendous success of the football program and a growing demand for a bigger variety of sports codes.

Upon visiting Grootbos, former German Bundesliga player, Delf Ness (Der Club an der Alster, Hamburg) was inspired to launch the Alster Grootbos Hockey Project, bringing the sport to Gansbaai for the first time. 

Hockey is played by both girls and boys, promotes teamwork and hand-eye coordination, and is excellent for endurance. It is generally still regarded as an elite sport in South Africa, played mostly in affluent communities, and our aim is to take hockey to rural communities and give children who would otherwise never have been exposed to it, equal opportunity to play and learn.

The hockey programme has since 2009 expanded to Stanford and Hermanus and presently sees a mix of genders and all three races creating increased integration within the program.

At the Gansbaai Spaces for Sport field, our local community hockey group currently teaches hockey to three different age groups (age 1-6, age 7 – 10, age 11 -15), We are proud to announce that this group comprises local white participants creating integration amongst the team.

In 2014 the hockey program was expanded to three Hermanus communities where we have three girls- and one boys’ team : Mount Pleasant, Zwehile, Hawston Primary.

In Stanford the hockey program is coached at two schools: Okkie Smuts and Die Bron.

As of 2018, we also started a cooperation with the South African Hockey Association and the Western Province Hockey Union. That led to regular visits of coaches, support with equipment and first players taking part in training camps and games for regional teams.

Since the beginning of the projects, four to six volunteers mostly from Germany have been teaching parallelly the children. We are looking to increase the participants from other nations in the future.

A team in Hamburg, Germany, continuously supports the project by- steering the volunteer selection

  • steering the volunteer selection
  • creating income sources for the project through private donations, companies and charity events
  • continuously improving the project step by step.