Chapter 27

Hockey

25th March 1968

Scoring my first Inter Service Goal against the RN at Vine Lane

I thought that I would write a little about my hockey exploits to include any stories that do not appear in the other chapters because they were not particularly relevant to the main story.  The reason for this chapter’s position in the story is that this time in my story marked the end of my playing career.

During my early days with Adel I played on the Right Wing, which, as with football, has become outdated as a position as have all of the other positions that I will mention.  By the time that I joined the RAF I had switched to playing Inside Left and it was in this position that I spent most of my playing career.

I became quite a prolific goal scorer, although at Halton I suppose that because I was one of the few who had played before joining up, it was not unexpected.  We had three Wings  at Halton and I played in an Inter Wing competition one year in which 3 Wing beat the other two Wings comprehensively, the scores being 11 - 1 and 8 - 0.  I scored 18 of those goals.  During my early days at Halton, the footballers thought that hockey was a game for girls so used to scoff at us but on some occasions one would turn up to play hockey because there was no football available.  It was not unknown for me to encourage them to stand in the goal so that I could practice shooting from the edge of the ‘D’.  After a few ‘undercuts’ whistled by them, they would change their minds about hockey being a game for cissies!  Actually footballers made quite good goalkeepers.  At Waddington, we were short of a goalkeeper but we found a footballer who said that he would ‘give it a go’.  This was Jock HASTIE, a corporal on the Flight Line and he became very good indeed, once saving a shot with his head.  He was also a chunky lad who frightened the living daylights out of many a forward as he fearlessly rushed out to meet them.

Maria will tell that I was also quite aggressive on the pitch.  Actually this was probably a defence against being hurt because if I could get close then there was less chance of being hit by the ball, although more chance of being hit with a stick.  Playing for Adel against Leeds City Police one day, this aggression did get me hurt.  I had chased a ball but failed to get to it but did run into one of the opposition.  Some minutes later at a ‘Roll In’, I was waiting for the ball to come into play and, as the ball was released, an elbow was shoved very firmly under my ribs.  As I collapsed, I looked at the chap who had done it; he didn’t say much but it was the same person that I had previously run into.  I probably stayed away from him after that.

‘Roll In’, a rule that has long gone; this was the method of restarting the game after the ball had gone out of play over the side line.  The other rule that has long gone is the ‘Bully Off’.  This was a great skill but could also be very dangerous.  Much later in my career, I remember being told by a friend that, during an England training session, he had been taught all the different ways in which fingers could be broken during this type of restart to the game.  My Pop always said that the ‘Bully Off’ was a skill that he was sad to see go.  In the early days, if a ball went out of play over the ‘Goal Line’ the restart was with a 25 yard ‘Bully Off’ and the whole team had to be ‘On side’, in other words the defending team all had to be goal-side of the 25 yard line.  This made for a very confused situation in a very small area.  I think that the introduction of the restart with a 16 yard hit was probably a very good rule change.  Next to go was the penalty ‘Bully’.  This was replaced by the ‘Penalty Flick’, which gave much more of a chance to the attacking team, thus reflecting the serious nature of a defender’s offence in stopping a goal.  One of my first memories of the Penalty Flick came at the RAF Inter Command Championships at RAF Cranwell.  A penalty was awarded and up stepped a player who took a huge swipe and thumped the ball into the back of the goal.  Unfortunately he didn’t know that the penalty was supposed to be a flick and not a hit; this was quite a surprise because anyone that played at Command level should have known the rules.  One of my last memories of penalties was in 1979, when I scored two against BAOR to win the Inter Service match.

Over the years, the rules of hockey have changed out of all recognition making for a much faster flowing game with far fewer stoppages especially for ‘Turning’, which was placing yourself between the opposing player and the ball.  Nowadays, as I watch my son and grandson playing, it is a different game.

I didn’t get hurt too often but once at RAF Wittering, at a Bully Off, as I tried to win the ball I collided head on with the other chap.  Although not knocked out, I suffered from dizziness for some time afterwards and didn’t actually play for a couple of weeks.  I should probably have seen a doctor.  On another occasion, this time at Waddington, my left ear collided with an opponents elbow.  After the game, I went to blow my nose and realised that I could hear air passing through my eardrum.  I did see a doctor on this occasion but it took at least two visits to persuade him or her that I had a perforated eardrum.  Eventually I was sent for a specialist’s appointment at Nocton Hall but by the time I got there, the problem no longer existed.

Like most sportsmen, I always liked to think that I knew better than the umpire.  As a result I decided to become a qualified umpire myself.  A couple of occurrences come to mind.  Playing at Loughborough for Waddington, we were awarded a ‘Penalty’ or ‘Short’ Corner.  At that time the receiver was allowed to stop the ball with the hand, usually to allow someone else to step forward and hit the ball.  I had a different plan; I stopped the ball legally with my right hand, stick in left hand and, as I stood up, I took the ball with me using the stick one handed to move the ball across the ‘D’.  I then hit the ball into goal only to have the goal disallowed.  When I spoke to the umpire after the match, he said that the whole process was so slick that it could not have been legal!  I should point out that I did not make up this move, merely copied it from someone else.  Playing on the tarmac in Germany I became aware that one the opposition’s forwards was deliberately lifting the ball into my full back’s legs thus creating the foul of ‘Feet”.  I believed that this should have been a foul against the attacker and not defender.  When I tried to speak to the umpire after the match, he absolutely refused to enter into any sort of discussion.  When at Waddington, we turned up to play one match without an umpire; as it happened so did the opposition.  I spoke to their captain and we decided that we should play the game with the two of us both playing with a whistle in our mouths so that we could act as ‘playing umpires’.  I don’t remember any particular problems except the difficulty of not being able to breathe properly.

Whilst at Waddington, I had persuaded John BAKER to play hockey as we needed a Left Wing and John was very quick indeed.  During the time between him meeting and marrying Meryl, I was asked by the Bomber Command Secretary if I knew of anyone from Waddington who would like to go on a tour to Jersey.  I persuaded John, although, strangely I thought,  he didn’t seem too keen.  Anyway we went in the end and had a good time, playing some matches on the beach, which was quite interesting.  Later on John confided that he had found out just before the tour that Meryl was pregnant and she wanted him at home, not in Jersey!

I have mentioned in a previous chapter that I went on tour with the RAF team to Gibraltar.  Prior to my tour to Khormaksar, I was also selected to tour with the RAF team, this time to Cyprus.  I had to rush around and get an emergency passport and, having done that I was ready to go when the French Air Traffic Controllers decided to go on strike and not allow us to overfly France, resulting in a cancelled tour.  Don’t you just love the French.

During the 1960s, Strike Command toured to Holland on more than one occasion.  We went to play against the Royal Netherlands Air Force and reciprocated by hosting them on occasion.  I suppose that it was in about 1969 that we also played against a local civilian club in The Hague.  We were blown away by a young lad of 17, named Ties KRUIZE, who could do things with a hockey stick and ball that most of us could only dream about.  He went on to play 202 times for Holland and score 167 goals, which is a phenomenal strike rate.

The team photo was taken in 1971 and is of the Strike Command Team  who played against the Royal Netherlands Air Force at RAF Bentley Priory.  It includes some names who appear elsewhere in this story.  The short lad in the middle of the back row is Brian FOSTER and on his left is Joe AHMAD.  Second from the right at the back is Nick WHITLOCK who was a Canberra pilot killed in a crash in Norfolk in 1972.  Also at the back, on Brian’s right, is Chris LAWLESS who was a very interesting character.  In hockey parlance, he was ‘cack-handed’, meaning that he played holding the stick with left hand below the right.  He was extremely awkward to play against and had one of the longest and most accurate ‘scoop’ shots that I have ever come across.  He could scoop the ball from his own 25 yard line to his opponent’s 25 yard line.  Most of us could flick the ball a good distance but could rarely get the ball above head height for any distance.

On 15^th March 1972, I qualified as a Hockey Association Coach after attending a course held at RAF Halton (See Annex C, Page 19).  During the following years I went along to help train other coaches.

I am not proud of ‘cheating’ at anything but I have to admit that one day playing in a six-a-side game I chased a ball all the way into the ‘D’ as the goalkeeper came out.  He got there first and kicked it straight at me; although I had my stick right in front of me the ball hit me just above the knee and rebounded past the goalkeeper for the winning goal in that match!  I managed to get back to the centre of the pitch for a Bully without ever limping.  It doesn’t excuse anything but I remember playing in a match at Wittering when the ball lifted straight up after a clash of two sticks and the other chap caught the ball and ran past me with it before dropping it again and playing on with no whistle.

As I have mentioned previously, the rules of the game have changed over the years and included in that process were a couple of trials.  Whilst playing for Lincoln Imps in a Summer friendly match we were asked to experiment with 35 instead of 25 yard lines.  No-one could then be ‘offside’ outside of the 35 yard.  I think that this was only tried for the one year and certainly never made it into the rule book.  These days there is no ‘offside’ rule, which, I believe, is for the best and could well be adopted by football for the greater good of the game.

I was told a story, obviously anecdotal, about playing hockey at RAF Binbrook.  I didn’t play in this game for some reason but Roy O’HARA did and it was him that told the story; at one end of the pitch was a little copse and the ball did, on occasion, disappear in there.  On this occasion Roy went in looking for the ball and found someone who had hanged himself.  Not a good end to the game.  I knew Roy for many years, having first met at Waddington and later at Wildenrath where he also played golf.  He was a good talker with the Irish gift of the gab and one year, when he was selected as a reserve in an Inter Command match, virtually the whole team went out to a local pub the evening before the game.  By the end of the evening, Roy had convinced the selectors that I should move from Left Wing to Inside Left and he should be in the team on the Left Wing.

During the 1960s I came across a very interesting group of individuals playing for a team called the Sheffield Nordics.  The first time I encountered them was when the Officer in charge of hockey at Waddington rang me up and asked me to play for a Services representative team against the RAF College, Cranwell.  He had been approached and asked for two or three players of Command standard.  I turned up and played but found out that the ‘Service’ connection was very tenuous with the organiser being an ex-Army Captain.  I came across this team on several occasions and they were very pleasant, and well off, judging by the cars that they drove.  We played them at Waddington one year and I took them for a meal in the Airman’s Mess, which was  a come down for them.  Part of the deal with the Mess was that I had to collect everyone’s names so that proper accounting could be done.  I duly passed the sheet of paper around and everyone put ‘their names’ on it.  I say put ‘their names’, but when I looked at the paper I had a list of crooks and spies named, including Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Professor Moriarty.  I literally threw the list at the cook and fled before he realised what had happened.

I played in plenty of great games and scored plenty of goals but one of the games that I was most proud of was when I captained Strike Command and we beat Training Command 7-1, having been 1-0 down.  We had come up with a sort of 2-4-4 system which really worked well and we also had a secret weapon in the form of Sid (surname unspellable by me) who played opposite Training Command’s best forward, a Welsh International called Phil WEBBER.  Every time Phil got hold of the ball, Sid took it off him; it was a stunning performance and I had never seen Phil so exasperated.

When I was posted into St. Mawgan, I was still playing and decided to join Newquay.  My preference was to play in the second team at Centre Half from where I liked to think that I could control the game.  Newquay had other ideas and I capitulated in the end and started to play for the first team.  One day we went to play in Exeter and, playing Left Half, I was dreadful.  I could not stop a ball whatever I did and I was totally deflated.  What is more, I could have been playing golf and enjoying it much more.  For these reasons I decided to quit the game and never played again.  I was 43 by this time so had definitely had a good run although I do remember a chap called Bernard MODLEY at Waddington and he was still playing into his fifties.  A photo of him with our winning six-a-side team is included in Chapter 16.