THE lure of Europe will again be the big incentive when Canterbury Hockey Club’s men and women travel to Birmingham for the National Indoor Championships this weekend.

The event takes place at the National Indoor Arena on Sunday, with the men facing a 12.20pm semi-final against holders Loughborough Students, while the women take on Bowdon Hightown at 1.30pm.

The competition winners in each section represent England in the European Indoor Championships.

Canterbury’s men have been eliminated by Loughborough on each of the four occasions they have reached the national semi-finals, but skipper Andy Richardson says they are ready to buck the trend.

The teams have already met in the qualifying campaign when Canterbury were the only side to take a point off the students.

Richardson explained: "We’ve always given a good account of ourselves when we’ve played them before but we have tended to run out of steam.

Last season, for example, we were holding them 2-2 at half-time but they were able to rotate their squad and eventually won 7-2. When we played them in the league we had the better of the first half but they came back strongly.

"What happens Sunday could depend whether they bring their international players back in but we’re very much looking forward to going to do a job. Getting to Birmingham was just the first part and there’s a feeling that we’re due for a win over Loughborough."

Canterbury expect to be at full-strength for the weekend, with player-coach Zak Jones ready to play if needed after undergoing a knee operation before Christmas. Reading and East Grinstead contest the other semi-final, at 2.40pm.

Finalists once before, Canterbury’s women lost 2-0 to Hightown in the qualifying tournament, but they played the second weekend without international duo Mel Clewlow and Becky Duggan, who were in Argentina with England for a Four Nations Tournament.

Both will be available again for Birmingham and skipper Nikki Triggs feels Canterbury should start as favourites against Hightown despite the obvious threat of prolific scorer Tina Cullen.

Triggs said: "It was a fairly tight game before but we’d already qualified and I think we had that in the back of our minds.

"They’ve got some good individual players but I think we play better as a team indoors and having Becky and Mel back will make a difference. We certainly missed Mel at corners in the second week."

Favourites Chelmsford meet Ipswich in the second semi-final, but surprisingly holders Slough failed to qualify.

The event is being held at the NIA for the first time after many years at Crystal Palace and more 2,600 tickets have been sold in advance.

Tickets will be available on the day, priced £17 for adults, and £13 for under-18s, students and over-60s. There is also a family ticket which enables a child to go half price when accompanied by two adults (minimum two, maximum four).