What’s the ‘Club Road’ Ahead for Great Britain Men’s Hockey Star Nicholas Bandurak?
The hockey world has grabbed the eyeballs surrounding the rather ‘unfortunate and unexpected’ exit of Great Britain men’s hockey star Niccholas Bandurak from England-based club Holcombe. One may call it an ‘exit’, or a ‘departure’ but the development left no one in doubt that the star Great Britain men’s hockey forward faces perhaps the biggest setback of his hockey career.
The timing of Bandurak leaving the Kent-based club must be exceedingly frustrating given the fact that it’s the start of a fresh season – a situation that has left him ‘grapple with a great deal of uncertainty’ to find a club to do what he loves the most – playing hockey. Bandurak is hugely passionate about wearing the Holcombe jersey as well as the Great Britain and England jersey. One has vivid memories of how he took to social media to voice his deep disappointment at being excluded from the Great Britain squad for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Why this development has set the tongues wagging across the global hockey fraternity is the manner in which the whole thing panned out. Bandurak is not someone, who has just newly joined Holcombe and has been part of the club for nearly a decade and scored more than 200 goals for the club. Players joining and leaving clubs is a natural process in club hockey but such a kind of exit was on ‘unexpected lines’.
It won’t be a sweeping statement to make if one says Bandurak was the face of the club having spent such a long time at the club. The talented forward, who is also a skilled drag-flicker as well – one of the rare drag-flicking forwards in world hockey – has been clearly meted out a raw deal by the club.
The 31-year-old striker can be termed as a ‘late entrant’ to the national side having made his international debut during the 2022 Pro League against Spain at Valencia – a match where England pulled off a one-sided 6-1 win . He has been in prolific form upfront wearing the Great Britain and England jersey. The playing career graph of Bandurak is interesting – for someone who made his junior international debut during the 2013 Junior World Cup at New Delhi, it took him almost nine years to break into the national side.
He loves to make the most of the playing opportunities that come his way. Bandurak was in a rich vein of form at the 2022 Commonwealth Games at Birmingham, where he emerged as the top goal-scorer with 11 goals, including two hat-tricks against Ghana and Canada. He played his part in England’s runners-up finish at the 2023 EuroHockey Championship at Monchengladbach. The sturdy striker had also featured at the 2023 World Cup at Bhubaneshwar and Rourkela, where England had finished 5th.
Perhaps, Bandurak reserved his best for the Pro League – at the 2022-23 Pro League, he was instrumental in Great Britain finishing runners-up, scoring 12 goals and was the third highest goal- scorer behind Harmanpreet Singh and Alexander Hendrickxx. He was equally impressive at the 2021-22 Pro League scoring 10 goals, again emerging as the third highest goal-scorer behind Harmanpreet Singh and Tom Boon.
A player with imperious skills, Bandurak can make the opposition defence sweet with not just open play goals but with his handy drag-flicks as well. One is not sure about the circumstances that led to Holcombe letting go such a high quality player. A wave of uncertainty has confronted Bandurak for now but this phase would pass over soon as a player of his calibre does not deserve to twiddling his thumbs outside the hockey pitch. As they say talent can be delayed but never denied!
Bandurak could explore club-playing options within England at Surbiton, Old Georgians, Hampstead & Westminster among others. A player of his stature would be in great demand among top European clubs such as Pinoke, Kampong, Rot-Weiss Köln, Gantoise, Mannheimer HC, Bloemendaal, Club de Campo, Léopold, Real Club de Polo, etc. Who knows, he could be seen plying his hockey skills in the revived Hockey India League.
Images: Credit Twitter
