CCHS

Another whole year had to pass before hockey lessons began.  My earliest experience of any sort of a ‘game’ of hockey occurred at the end of January in my Upper IV year when the transport to Park Road playing fields failed to materialise and we stayed at Grey Friars.  We played on one of the hard-surfaced netball courts!  Whether these were 11 or even 15-a-side I am not sure, but I remember the court was rather crowded.  It was difficult to even get on the court and by default I became the last line of defence.  It was hard to be sure whether it was my hockey stick or my feet which played the ball.  It was exciting and maybe that was the reason I played in goal as a first choice position thereafter.

 

For our Lower V year we had this new experience of ‘life with the seniors’ at North Hill, with streaming, new class mates and teachers.  We also had to choose our winter sport - netball or hockey.  For me the choice was easy.  Hockey it was to be.  Although hockey sticks and a ball could be taken to the grass at the bottom of the steps at North Hill, and many of my lunch breaks occurred there, our games lessons took place at Park Road with much cherished time lost on the bus journeys from and back to North Hill.

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An exciting time occurred for me towards the end of the Spring Term.  Quite unexpectedly our teacher, Miss Owen, asked me if I could play that day (a Thursday) after school - in a match for the school 2nd XI versus St Mary’s School.  I suspect that match was arranged at short notice since it does not appear in the match record for that year.  A quote from my schoolgirl diary states ‘We won the match 5-0 and I didn’t play too well.’  I remember being shouted at by my team mates as they saw me play a ball - and it happened again a few minutes later.  After the match I was quietly asked if I had been taught that a goal could not be scored if the ball had been hit from outside the circle.  As the answer was no I realised my hockey education had begun in earnest.  On the Saturday morning there was an intense hockey practice for a Lower V teak to play the other years in a ‘tournament’ the following Tuesday.  I was lucky enough to play in that team along with RB Mary Greenacre, LB Joy Vince, RH Ann Watson, CH Margaret Edwards, LH Shirley Frost, RW  Dorothy Robinson, RI Shirley Jones, CH Helen Hancock, LI Heather Blundell and LW Ann Harland.  Of course, being in our first full year as hockey players we were at a disadvantage and we lost all our games, ie, versus Middle V 0-5, v Upper V 0-1 and v VI form 0-8.  It was quite a challenge but one I thoroughly enjoyed, even if it meant facing Pat Moon, Head Girl with 1st XI hockey colours, as the VI form Centre Forward!

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Those years as a 13 year old stay in my memory and I can still picture the scene at the change of ends in that last match.  Mary Holmes, VI form GK, had enough time to carve her initials into the scorch marked goal line, and as it was one of her last matches at school I thought it a fitting memento of her four years in the school 1st XI.

 

However, it was my Middle V year which stands out in my memory.  It was fortuitous and lucky for me that both 1st and 2nd XI goal keepers had left the school in the summer.  At the end of the second week in September we were back at school and whenever possible I was playing hockey.  At the end of the first week there was a school hockey practice on the Saturday.  I was lucky that near my home there was an area of hardstanding and a convenient low brick wall where I could go along with a couple of soft balls and practice stops and kicking.  I was there that Friday evening preparing for that Saturday practice.  Those Saturday practices for teams as well as after school sessions continued during the rest of September.  Goalkeeping pads were produced at North Hill for me and a few other girls in an attempt to find other goalkeepers.  Those lunchtime sessions became more purposeful.  The whole of the width of those steps at the bottom on the grass paddock became the goal (far wider than a normal goal mouth).  I was bombarded with shorts, firstly from two of the players just a year above me that I knew slightly out of school, then another couple nearer my age joined the sessions.  I believe they may have been instigated by Mary Long the Hockey Captain, because she occasionally joined those session with another couple of VI formers, thus gradually introducing me to goalkeeping sessions with them.  At the end of the month I was invited to a team meeting about clothing for sports, short wrap-around skirts would be an innovation.  I was also issued with my hockey girdle.  I was bubbling inside because it was not plan red (2nd XI) and certainly not red with a white crossed pattern (1st team netball) but red with a white zigzag pattern (1st XI hockey)!  It was with great pride that I wore that girdle, not just for matches but in school for the whole of the hockey season.  Those girdles hung like a tie down the front of the left thigh in school but were worn down the middle at the back for matches (away from hands and sticks).

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Matches began in October, the first two were away from home and for the first at Halstead Grammar School, two of my class mates came as supporters (another of Mary Long’s ideas!), so I was not travelling alone with all the VI formers and senior girls.  The second match was versus Northgate School in Ipswich and my diary states ‘Had a lovely morning’ and I realised I was playing in a team whose standard I had not previously experienced.  Not only that but in this team were two of those players, Thelma Smith and Pat Moon, who had appeared in that early photograph of the unbeaten team of four years earlier.  Those initial matches brought home to me how privileged I was to be there, meeting girls from other schools and experiencing their facilities.  Although the majority of the team were VI formers and prefects, I was treated as just another team player, even if I was a rookie goalkeeper.  We had other team meetings.  I remember a serious one when we discussed the possibility of entering the Essex Schools Tournament.  Those girls in that team were respected school members, many of the not only excellent sports players but also very bright academically.  The playing record that season was:  played 11, won 8, drew 1 and lost 2.

 

It was not all serious hockey for we had some fun too.  I remember one occasion when one of our fast players collected the ball and set off upfield.  Somehow her new wrap-around skirt came undone and dropped away from her waist.  With no more than a slight hesitation in her stride, she stepped out of the skirt and continued on upfield!  Needless to say nothing came of that attack as for the rest of the team were like me - helpless with laughter.  On other occasions one of our players, with no public transport on Saturdays for matches, would be driven to matches, home and away, by a parent accompanied by a younger brother.   Our short knock-ups prior to matches were enlivened by the tricks of those three family members.  Our team mate took her knock-up seriously like the rest of us, but the other two would play all manner of shoves, barging, trips and dodging out of the way of maliciously hit balls, when suddenly the daughter of the family would join in also.  They were very funny.  It is the time comradeship of team sport that is so unique, helping, cajoling, instructing, working and enjoying company and even sharing team mates secrets.  They were all experiences I encountered that year. 

 

To be continued ..........

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