62Nd Blackpool Easter Hockey Festival - Official Programme 2013
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Working in partnership with: 62nd Blackpool Easter Hockey Festival - Official Programme 2013 Blackpool Easter Hockey Festival 3 62 Years and Counting Contents Official Programme 2013 4 Welcome to Blackpool 19 Team Entries and Umpires Message from the Festival President 2013 Entries - - 6 My Forty Year Love Affair 20 Locations Map Celebrating 40 years at BHF! Finding your way... - - 7 Blackpool Cricket Club 22 Festival Hockey Rules Food, beer, cricket, social marquee and more... A few basic rules... - - 8 Team Focus 23 Important Information Combined Services HA Everything you need to know... - - 9 Club Focus 24 Fixtures Morpeth Mens HC Friday 28th March - - 10 Head to Head 26 Fixtures Angela Vs. Kendal Saturday 29th March - - 12 Head to Head 28 Fixtures Rob Vs. Darren Sunday 31st March - - 14 Head to Head 30 Fixtures Ross Vs. Bob Monday 1st April - - 15 Festival Social Events 32 Previous Award Winners We know how to party... Festival, Bunny Wain & Blackpool Centenary Winners - 16 Let’s meet the Committee! Helping you put names to faces... Blackpool Carers Centre would like to thank BHF Committee for their continued support and we look forward to a second year in partnership. I hope you all have an enjoyable time in Blackpool at the Festival. If you would like to advertise in the 2014 Festival Michelle Smith Programme please contact us via [email protected] Blackpool Carers Centre 4 Official Programme 2013 Welcome to Blackpool Message from the Festival President A warm welcome to the 62nd Yet despite all this we all found Building on the successes of last Festival and a particular welcome ‘Blackpool’ magical and couldn’t wait year you will find new ideas and to ‘first-timers‘. I am so pleased for Festival 1966! ventures introduced this year, and to see my own club from on behalf of us all I thank Blackpool Under the sterling leadership of Northumberland back with us Council, the sponsors and other well- Peter Danson the Festival developed after a few years’ absence. wishers whose interest and generosity well and, following his retirement, make it possible for us to put on offer The responses from players, a young and talented group came what must surely be the best hockey sponsors and the other participants together to plan Festival 2012. Their festival in the land. to Festival 2012 really uplifted and enthusiasm and skills have moved the encouraged the organising committee Festival on to a new level. However the Festival would not be whose motto is ‘Bigger and Better’. possible without you, the players and I admire and appreciate every one umpires. Thankyou for coming - I know This is my 49th attendance at the of my committee each of which has you will not be disappointed because Festival and ‘Blackpool’ has become a given much to revitalise our end-of- all is in place for another fantastic very important part of my life. My first season celebration of Hockey. But on-pitch and off-pitch four days. Enjoy! Festival was in 1965 which was men- I would like to take this opportunity and keep an eye on our website’s only, no ‘winners’ because no record to highlight two of our members: clock which is ticking down towards of the results was kept, matches were Those of you who have visited our Festival 2014. played on rough parkland within the website will be as impressed with it Stanley Park and we did not have the George Robson as I am, and I pay tribute to our digital Blackpool Cricket Club or Sanuk as our Festival President and Chairman team of Simon Allen and Shaun Bent partners (we were just encouraged to whose professionalism shines through meet in the evenings at a pub near the on every page. Simon also designs the Park). Also, teams had to provide their Festival programme for us and it is own umpires (often inexperienced and no exaggeration for me to say I found sometimes with no experience at all!). what he created last year, and again this year, absolutely stunning. Great work, Simon! Blackpool Easter Hockey Festival 5 62 Years and Counting Mathew Johnson 1981 - 2012 This year sees Macclesfield Hockey Club returning to Blackpool Hockey Festival without one of its most loved members. In October Mathew Johnson passed away unexpectedly due to natural causes aged just 31. Matty had been a member of our club and a close personal friend of mine since he was 15 and had been a regular with us at Blackpool Hockey Festival for many years. He was the life and soul of the party, never took himself too seriously and would be there for anyone. He was one of the rare few people about whom you can find no one who has a bad word to say about him. We intend to honour him as he would have wanted, by celebrating his life and making the most of ours. Aaron Gaskell Chairman Macclesfield HC 6 Official Programme 2013 MY FORTY YEAR LOVE AFFAIR! Back in 1974 a young enthusiastic hockey player from Sunderland was co-opted at 3 weeks’ notice to fill a vacancy in his clubs Easter Touring side. So started 40 years of Easter at Blackpool. The early days at our social Weather at Blackpool is to say centre - Blackpool Cricket the least unreliable and one year Club - saw an upstairs room when all the grass pitches were with bare wood flooring, pie waterlogged two teams fed up and peas and “Dancing with drinking (honestly) took Girls” who gyrated for male to the beach. Magpies from entertainment. Pennants Shifnall versus York Trojans. brought to swap with other Pitch marked, posts created teams were seen dangling and the game started with Peter from nipples! This was a men as one of the umpires. only festival. “How long we playing for Peter?” Games were played for crates came the cry. As ever he quickly of beer often drunk at half time! came back with the retort ”Until the tide The pitches were marked out areas comes in”!! on Stanley Park and if you were really Peter continued to Umpire at the festival lucky you got to play on the cricket oval. Flat and in 1999 took over from Ken Mounter as they were not, full size they were not, muddy Umpires’ Secretary, a role he undertook by living in they were, more often than not. In those days a the umpires’ room and sending umpires to all parts of new offence of stamping the ball into the pitch was the Fylde coast. The Festival had spread to several outlets added to the FIH rules. where “Astro turf” pitches were based. Hockey was now As the years progressed discos in the downstairs of the played on plastic grass, cricket club became the norm with DJ Steve Kennedy (who 2006 disaster strikes. A carefully planned hip was heavily involved with the Cricket Club and later went on resurfacing operation is cancelled at the last minute to sponsor the Mixed Festival) on the decks, and records when a nurse collapsed in the operating theatre with an were played which allowed the Undertakers from Bury H.C anaphylactic shock. to parade round with their coffin (often filled with cans) and No Blackpool now as the operation was reorganised for the boys from Dyabas, Fudgie, Marshall, Dougie et al to 1st April (Yes April Fools’ Day!). So after 33 years the run dance to Jeff Beck’s Hi Ho Silver lining with their own words was to end. No Blackpool Festival! of DY...DY...DYABAS. But wait! His long suffering partner Sheila seeing how Sadly numbers dwindled to a mere 13 teams in 1986 upset he was offers to drive him over for the day on the with Peter’s club no longer one of them. They were off to Saturday. Ever resourceful Peter offers a meal at his other Festivals. At that time every seaside resort seemed favourite Blackpool Italian Don Antonio’s in Red Bank Road to have a festival at Easter - Scarborough, Bridlington, and an overnight stay in the De Vere Hotel close to Stanley Folkestone - with results reported in the Daily Telegraph!! Park. Peter joined up with the York Trojans boys and came as Hey Presto! Two days at the Festival hobbling with two an umpire. sticks round the pitches claiming it was rehab exercises. A Umpires in those days were provided by the teams coffee in the umpires’ room and his usual greeting of “Mr from the previous match and were marshalled by a funny President Good Morning” to George Robson our Festival little man with a bobble hat who patrolled Stanley Park President - All was well with the world. with a dozen whistles hung on string round his neck 2013 is his Fortieth Festival - Easter would not be the “volunteering” you to umpire on pitch C D or E. That man same without Sun, Sea, Sand and Hockey. Why Blackpool was TA “Bunny” Wain who took over as Festival President at Easter?? Fun & Friendships honed over 40 years. That’s from George Greaves. what hockey is about and long may it continue. Thankfully umpires are more organised now and a Merry Band gather every year. By Peter MacLellan Blackpool Cricket Club Bar Open Daily 11:00 - 00:00 Marquee Events: Good Friday Easter Saturday Easter Sunday Glow Project! Live Band & DJ Pre Closing Party Kick off BHF2013 in style, with Join us for a second night of fun Join us in the Social Marquee for DJ Dave Pope illuminating your in the Social Marquee in your pre closing party drinks before evening as part of our ‘Glow team shirt! Live band (Venuzuela, heading into town for the mother Project’ themed evening of Venuzuela) and DJ Dave Pope of all fancy dress parties at Club entertainment, face paints, give playing all your favourite party Sanuk! Note there will be no aways and team games...Free anthems until late! Free buses to buses to town on Sunday.