IN THE run up to the 2012 London Olympics, Littleborough resident Peter Nicholson has been making huge progress with England’s Senior Mens hockey side.

Peter, 54, is the Performance Manager at England Hockey as well as the manager of the Senior Men’s team which recently won a gold medal at the European Championships, something they hadn’t done since 1920.

The win secured England’s place as one of the top six sides in the world, and represented their biggest achievement for a long time.

Having spent much of his life playing hockey, Peter’s progression into coaching was one that came naturally.

Growing up in Ulverston, Cumbria he first picked up a hockey stick at school and soon became a member of the school team.

That in turn led to him breaking into the game at a much higher level when a teacher suggested he joined Ulverston Hockey Club.

After staying at Ulverston for four years it was time for Peter to move on to a bigger club, and he did just that when securing a move to Preston.

"Preston were in the North West League which was a strong league," he said. "It helped my hockey to develop and I went from playing at county level for Cumbria to Lancashire which were a good team. The,n in 1978 when I was 23, I got my first cap for the England Indoor hockey side, and I played for them for 10 years."

When the time came to stop playing, Peter knew he wanted to go into coaching:

"I retired from playing when I was 35, and for the last two years at Preston I was a player/coach. I wanted to stay at a high level rather than play until I was 50 in the lower leagues."

So when a job became available to coach Hull-based side Welton, Peter jumped at the chance.

From then to the present day the Littleborough man’s career has been a series of impressive promotions. Next up was a Head Coaching position at the Welsh Senior Women’s team lasting four years, before becoming a part of England Hockey.

"In 1998 I was made redundant from my job at Pearl Insurance and decided that I wanted to try and make a living out of coaching. Around this time England advertised for regional coaches throughout the country, I applied for the North West position and was successful. And so for the first seven or eight years I was a regional academy coach in the North West. During that time I became the Head Coach of England’s Under 21s Women team, and then I did the same job but for the Under 21’s Mens programme. It was around five years ago when I began doing what I do now which is the Performance Manager role and overall manager for the Men’s senior team."

With such an extensive CV, Peter has been the ideal man to take England’s Mens hockey team forward.

The long term future of the sport looks bright as well, as his responsibilty as Performance Manager is to develop a pathway for the young players to grow into first team squad members.

The hard work has begun paying off for England Hockey, particularly with their European Championships victory back in August.

"Hockey is particularly strong in Europe, so while the European Championships isn’t the Olympics it was still a heck of an achievement," says Peter, whose focus now moves to 2012.  I think we’re now playing sufficiently well that we can compete with anybody and our aim would be to be on the podium. We will be competitive, there’s no quesiton about that."

Peter also knows how important the Olympics will be for enhancing the profile of the sport: "We hope to create a legacy from 2012, not just to have the attraction to the sport come and go."

With a busy schedule ahead, Peter’s enthusiasm and knowledge is sure to give the side a huge chance of success: "There are so many strands to being involved in team sport. You have to make individuals who are all different into a team. I enjoy every part of being in a team."