DAVID Harte is calling time on his 13-year career with Dutch hockey club Kampong after deciding it’s time to move closer to home.
West Cork’s greatest ever hockey player, who has starred at two Olympic Games for Ireland including Paris last summer, is bringing the curtain down on his glittering career with Kampong at the end of the current season. It’s family first, the man from Ringrone outside Kinsale explained, as Harte, his wife Lyn and their daughters, Georgia and Ava, are moving to Belfast.
‘I told the club two months ago that I am not an option for next season,’ Harte (36) explained. ‘We are moving with our family to Belfast, the city where my wife Lyn is from. This is the time to make a move. My eldest daughter is going to elementary school there next season.’
He added: ‘I am still an Irish international. And I would also like to continue with club field hockey. In what way I don’t know yet. I can’t combine life in Belfast with top field hockey in The Netherlands. The season is also too long for that. I don’t rule out another foreign adventure, if that also combines with home.’
Regarded as Kampong’s greatest-ever goalkeeper, Harte was crowned national champion three times (2017, 2018 and 2024) and in 2016, together they won the Euro Hockey League.
