WANGANUI hockey's development system has suffered a blow with the departure yesterday of Shane Newell and wife Joanne to Albury-Wadonga in Australia.
Newell has successfully coached Wanganui Tech Old Boys in the Manawatu-Central League competitions for some years, and has also been looking after the younger age-groups. Wife Joanne has been
a hard worker in the development areas as well.
Newell, rendering co-ordinator at Affco in Wanganui, will be going to a roughly similar job at Norvic Food Processing in Wodanga ? the southern half of the town partnership on the New South Wales-Victoria border.
The "double-town", split by the Murray River, is known for its sporting facilities, especially in hockey and bowls. Certainly several bowls internationals between Australia and New Zealand have been held there.
And Newell says hockey is certainly a big sport in the area. "They've got three hockey turfs in Albury, and they call it 'the hockey capital of Australia'."
And this will suit Newell's son Brad (13), who's apparently keen to get involved in hockey and cricket over there.
"Brad's looking to get really involved, but I'll probably take a break from hockey for a while," Newell said.
He decided the time was right for a move late last year when Affco was involved in making some redundancies. "I wasn't made redundant, but things were changing. So I spoke to an old boss (Eugene Kurmann) in Australia, he said 'I've got a manager's job here, do I want to have a look at it?' So I did have a look, and we made the decision just before Christmas," Newell said.
Newell says he'll miss the kids development programme more than his senior role: "They're big boys, they can look after themselves. And we had a lot of plans for the kids, but at the end of the day it came down to doing what's best for the family. But it is unfortunate they have to suffer as well," Newell said.
The Newell's will be accompanied by another hockey stalwart and family friend Denis McKenna and son Denis Jnr.
