Sheffield Hockey Club

People do all sorts of daft things to raise money but how about stripping down to your pants at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning in November and lying down on a frozen hockey pitch?!

Well that's the length that twelve members of Sheffield Ladies Hockey Club have gone to, to produce a naked calendar to raise money for their club and their chosen charity, the MS Society.

Nicki Best, the Ladies Club Captain for Sheffield Hockey Club came up with the idea and proceeded to cajole and bully her fellow team mates into doing it too.

A date in November was agreed and lists were made for the props needed; Santa hats, tinsel, shaving foam, dressing gowns and umbrellas to name just a few. The poses were practiced, matching pants were dyed and fake tans and false eyelashes were applied. Now for the tricky bit - photo-shoot day!

After an early start the girls assembled at Abbeydale Sports Club, where Sheffield Hockey is based, on a very cold Saturday morning in November and after a little bit of a slow start, the dressing gowns soon fell to the floor whilst they got into position.  After an hour of running around with virtually nothing on, the images were captured, topped off by a cheeky shower shot!

Talking about the experience Nicki Best said

“It was freezing to start off with, but once the adrenalin started flowing, everyone began to relax and ease into their model roles!  The worst bit was probably the shots whereby we had to lie on the pitch, which, lucky for us was frozen.  If anything we helped the club by defrosting the pitch for the day! It was a hilarious morning and I can only thank all the girls that were involved, including Ange and Amy who got up just to help with ‘body watch’ and the  dressing gowns; as well as Dave the photographer, who definitely had his eyes opened that morning "

Lots of correspondence then ensued between the printers, We Print This and Nicki to make sure any stray body parts were airbrushed out. Andy Richards from the printers commented

“Given that I know a lot of the girls, being a member of Sheffield Hockey Club myself, I wanted to ensure that the girls would be happy that all those parts had been respectfully hidden, so there was a lot of zooming in and editing done.  You could say I had to have a keen eye on some of the shots. “

Profits from the calendar will go to Sheffield Hockey Club, which has recently found out it's going to be the new home of the Olympic 'smurf turf' - so called because of its distinctive bright blue colour; and the MS society, as a way of saying thank you to Dave Wilson who kindly photographed the girls free of charge.

Dave Wilson, the man responsible for capturing it all on camera and whose wife has MS said,

"Nicki asked me to take the photos which, initially I was unsure about as I am not a professional photographer; however she can be quite persuasive.  To top it off, she informed me that a proportion of the proceeds raised would be going to the MS Society.  This is a charity very close to my family and therefore this meant a lot that the club was doing this and I will be the first person to buy a calendar!”

Simon Moran from the MS society said

"The calendar looks really professional. You all deserve medals for braving those temperatures, which doesn’t show on the models faces and the photos look fab.”

The calendars go on sale from Saturday the 1st of December 2013 for only £10.00 with an informal launch night at Abbeydale Sports Club on 8^th of December at 7pm.  Calendars are available by order behind the bar at Abbeydale Sports Club or by contacting Sheffield Hockey Club via email on [email protected]

A sneak preview can be seen on Youtube.