Hockey Umpires

Love 'em or hate 'em, we NEED them...

Like most ball sports, the poor old umpires and referees are always getting stick from the players. But without them there just wouldn't be a game! That's why at Royston Hockey we have realised the need to have and develop good umpires. In fact our Club can boast having had a couple of top world class umpires in John Whitehead and Doug Bruce, who have blown at International level and the Olympics! John Whitehead is still very active today and blows a firm but fair game.

Royston Hockey club currently have about 14 level one qualified umpires and actively support players who wish to become umpires, by providing funding and pitch time for their training. Last season alone, RHC managed to put 10 new umpires through their written exam and hope to have 23 level one qualified umpires by the end of the season. (Not a number many clubs can boast about!!) Some of our more experienced umpires, Neil Drage and Pete Belcher are pictured below.

Each year at the beginning of the season, all club umpires are asked to complete a simple sheet to establish what games they can and can't do. This information is then used to select umpires for each of the games during the season. Copies are then distributed to all team captains and umpires so that before the season starts, every game (for every team) has an appointed umpire. We have found that the system works extremely well and reduces the amount of time spent by captains and vice captains running around trying to find someone to umpire. It also allows playing umpires to know well in advance where they will be each weekend.

We would like to encourage any people interested in becoming a new umpire to contact a committee member and we will help get you started on some training. We can never have enough umpires.

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