University of St. Andrews: Pair selected for UK’s elite hockey development squad
Two University of St Andrews hockey players have been selected to join the Great Britain Women’s Elite Development Programme.
Emily Dark from Newburgh in Fife and Raph Robeson from Guildford in Surrey are among 29 players to be selected from across the home nations.
The Elite Development Programme (EDP) is designed to give those identified as having the potential to perform at the highest level an environment in which they can develop the skills, physicality and character required to become a medal-winning Olympian.
Players will attend a series of two-day training camps and will be in regular contact with the senior squads through training sessions and practice matches. There may also be opportunities to play matches and competitions against other nations.
Emily, a fourth-year Physics student, said: I’m delighted and honoured to be selected again for the GB Elite Development Squad and I’m looking forward to getting started. I’d also like to thank the University for their continued support.”
Meanwhile Raph, a first-year International Relations and Economics student, said: “I am really excited to have been selected for the GB EDP; it is something I have been working towards since I started hockey and am looking forward to seeing where this opportunity takes me.”
Both players already have a strong pedigree in international hockey, with Emily having been selected as a travelling reserve for the full Senior GB Women’s Hockey team against the Netherlands and Belgium in 2020, and Raph playing for the England U16 and U18 teams from 2017 to 2020, competing against Holland, Belgium, Germany and Ireland.
Emily, who plays her club hockey for Watsonians Hockey Club in Edinburgh, is a Scottish Senior Women’s Hockey Internationalist, part of the performance hockey programme at the University of St Andrews and has won the Chancellor’s Award for Sporting Excellence for the last two years – the highest sporting accolade the University bestows.
She is also a Scottish Institute Supported Athlete with 23 Scotland Senior Women’s Hockey Team caps. She achieved a gold medal and was U21 Player of the Tournament at the European Championship II Division for Scotland in Glasgow in August 2019. She also took bronze at the Indoor European Championship II Division in Croatia in January 2020 and a gold medal and player of the tournament at the Indoor European Club Challenge I in Porto in February 2020.
Raph won the England Hockey Investec Women’s League Conference East with Wimbledon Hockey Club in 2020 and took the U18 Hockey Writers’ Club award for outstanding contribution to hockey in 2019. She was also part of the Wellington College team who were National Champions for both indoor and outdoor hockey in 2018.