New GB Hockey performance chief eyes ‘clinical, consistent’ success

The future success of Great Britain and England’s hockey teams will be in the hands of a new performance director following a stellar Olympic Games performance in Rio.

Dr Ed Barney will take on the role on 19 September after spending time as Great Britain Hockey’s head of talent development, where he was part of the team which oversaw Great Britain’s women’s squad win the gold medal this summer.

He replaces Danny Kerry, who will continue as full-time head coach of the women’s squad after guiding them to glory.

A former sailing athlete, Barney moved into coaching with the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) before joining the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as its talent identification specialist. He subsequently moved to Great Britain Hockey in 2013.

Barney said the national governing body needed to be “clinical in converting recent success into a long-term, systemic and consistent medal-winning performance”.

England Hockey chief executive Sally Munday – who is also a board member at the English Institute of Sport – said that Barney “shone throughout” the hiring process “against candidates from across hockey, as well as other Olympic disciplines”.

“I’m certain he’ll enable GB Hockey’s coaching, science and medicine teams to build on their Rio success, further develop the world-class programme and pathway to deliver consistent success on the world and Olympic stages for many years to come,” added UK Sport director of performance Simon Timson.