Personality profile
Ashley clearly thrives on a challenge
Ashley was also a keen cricketer and
accepted into the Kent Cricket Academy — some members of staff actually considered him to have more potential as a cricketer.
However, in his final year at school,
2005, Ashley didn’t play much 1st XI cricket, having become too involved in hockey.
The midfielder made his debut for
one of the country’s leading hockey clubs, East Grinstead, in 2003 while just 15 and gained representative honours for England shortly after.
He made his debut for the English
senior side in the 2006/7 season at the age of 19 and was awarded the FIH Young Player of the Year title three years later — the first English player to receive this coveted accolade.
Ashley’s first Olympic match was in
2008, in Beijing, where the team finished 5th. At the London 2012 games, they came 4th.
He also played for the England squad in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, coming fourth, and won bronze in the 2014 Commonwealths — so has high hopes for next year’s big event.
Ashley, still only 28, trains daily with
Ashley had spent all his adult playing career with East Grinstead.
Not only did he help East Grinstead
scoop the league and championship titles, he also helped them to obtain the European Indoor title for the 2009/10 season.
However, an approach from Holcombe chairman David South proved too much to resist.
Ashley was awarded the FIH Young Player of the Year title – the first English player to receive this coveted accolade.
England Hockey at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, near Marlow, and has spent the past few years living a comfortable 15-minute commute away in High Wycombe, travelling to his club when matches demand.
Under his central contract to the England GB team, Ashley trains from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, for the national team, turning out possibly one evening a week for his local club.
Until earlier this year, with the
exception of two years spent playing for the Dutch side of HGC in the Hoofklasse,
In May, he joined several of his GB
team-mates in the Rochester-based club, and will make his first appearance on the pitch for them this season.
South is busy hoovering up some of
hockey’s most talented players to create an A-team of GB internationals and the signings have caused quite a stir in English hockey circles.
Ashley, who was once dubbed the
‘Ronaldo of hockey’, said: “It was a difficult decision to leave friends and family but it was a decision I had to take for hockey — and for business reasons.”
Holcombe’s name heralds from an old boys club at Chatham Grammar School in the Sixties; the grounds they played at, near Rochester, being called Holcombe.
Originally one of six clubs in the Medway towns, Holcombe merged with three others in 2000.
It now has 12 mens’ and five ladies’ teams.
8 Mid Kent Living
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