MARLOW Hockey Club have made it a double with their first and second teams celebrating success this week.

The still-unbeaten 1s clinched the league title with four games to spare on Saturday and the 2s secured their third successive promotion with a 7-2 win.

Their success is all the sweeter as the side is packed full of local lads – and they’ve already got their sights set on more silverware next season.

Head Coach Adam Taylor said: “This has happened without us encouraging players from outside to come and join us. Young Marlow lads have come back from college and joined us, having played at a high level.

“There are some who have played in the Premiership, there’s junior internationals and they have all been coached by Marlow from the age of eight.

“We’re proud of what we’ve produced. We’ve not been stealing players from other teams, over the last 15 years we’ve been developing players. They are home grown players and we will endeavour to keep them.”

The 1s wrapped up the MBBO Regional 2 league with four games to spare as Tom Woolven, Jack Clee, Dave Harding, Ed Kelleher and Ben Roberts netted in a 5-1 win at Rover Oxford.

The average age of the squad is 22 and five youth internationals turned out for them on Saturday.

Taylor said: “We are not talking senior pros doing their dying bit playing for us before they retire.

“We are anxious to keep them together – we want to get them promoted next season.”

The 2s were also on the goal trail at the weekend in a 7-2 victory over Phoenix and Ranelagh.

Rob Gerrits scored four times in the thrashing to take himself top of the league’s goalscoring chart and the other goals came from Gareth Baber and Rob Walls, who bagged a brace.

Between them Marlow's top two teams have amassed 184 goals in 37 games, and the club is getting bigger on and off the pitch.

Taylor said: “We’ve just secured the ground, we’re building a new Astroturf pitch – there’s a lot happening.”

The Head Coach added Marlow had a long tradition of developing players, and this was thanks to their close links to Sir William Borlase Grammar School.

He said: “Having the grammar school system in the area has helped because they play hockey and dedicate a lot of resources to it. We work very closely with Borlase in particular to make sure what they are doing dovetails with what we are doing.”