Working in partnership with: 63rd Blackpool Easter Hockey Festival - Official Programme 2014 Club Sanuk Blackpool’s Biggest Nightclub Official Festival Partner All alcohol sold for consumption on the premises only. #BHF2014 - 63 Years and Counting 3 Contents Official Programme 2014 Features BHF2014 Welcome to Blackpool 4 Location Map 18 Message from the Festival President Social Schedule 20 Thank you George 5 Team and Officials List 21 Message from the Festival Secretary Fixtures - Friday 22 Fixtures - Saturday 24 The man with a heart of gold... 6 Celebrating 50 years at BHF! Fixtures - Sunday 26 Fixtures - Monday 28 Team Focus 8 Playing Rules 30 Dyabas Important Information 31 Team Focus 9 Queen’s University Belfast Head to Head 10 Rob Vs. Jay Let’s meet the Committee! 12 Helping you put names to faces... Previous Award Winners 14 Festival, Bunny Wain & Blackpool Centenary Winners “Hoorah for Saint George of England and Blackpool. Why do we all keep coming? For those special people of the Festival who engender friendship and fair play across the hockey fraternity. You are one - a special one; long may it last. A Blackpool friend for ‘only’ 37 years.” Andy Barnes “Blyth Spartans, nil George Robson, fifty! Good luck and keep adding to that score. All the best!” Ross Anderson and Bob Maltby Blackpool Carers Centre would like to thank BHF Committee for their continued support and we look forward to a third year in partnership. I hope you all have an enjoyable time in Blackpool at the Festival. If you would like to advertise in the 2015 Festival Programme Michelle Smith please contact us via [email protected] Blackpool Carers Centre 4 Official Programme 2014 Welcome to Blackpool Festival President Durham University arrived in “The last five days have definitely Blackpool for the 1965 Festival to been the happiest of my life”, and find all the pitches were on parkland, this was only one of many effusive none of them drained and most of ‘feedbacks’ the organisers received. them rutted. There were only twenty- ‘Music to our ears’! five teams, all men’s, and each had to provide their own umpires. The This year you will find more than ‘programmes’ consisted of a single ‘fine tuning’ of the Festival. There sheet fixture list and the social scene is an extra grass pitch with a fine was restricted to meeting in a local surface at the Cricket Club, and the pub - The Golden Fleece - in the festival headquarters plus much else evenings. As students we wanted the is relocated from the Sports Centre to cheapest accomodation we could find. make the Cricket Club the Festival’s This led to some of us having not only nerve centre. to share rooms but to share beds as The social events have amongst them well! some new ventures too. If you love But no matter - we couldn’t wait to be hockey and love socialising then forget back for Festival 1966. I suppose the your hotel and forget your bed - we fact that the left winger (me!) scored have non-stop 24 hour enjoyment a bagful of goals added gloss to my for you! view of the Festival, a first ever visit to Whilst I welcome everyone to the the Pleasure Beach added even more sixty-third Festival I hold out a special gloss and a promise from Gypsy Rose greeting to the ‘first-timer’. I’m sure Lee in her Golden Mile booth that I you’ll be back. was soon to receive an unexpected large sum of money was the best As they say these days - ENJOY!! gloss of all. George Robson ‘Blackpool’ was magic to a young lad Festival President and Chairman still in his teens and every festival over the following forty-nine years has been just as magical. I suppose my fiftieth attendance is some kind of achievement and a reason to mull over the countless memories I have. But the current committee’s five year plan to make each succeeding festival BIGGER AND BETTER and Blackpool the place to be for hockey afficiadoes is undoubtedly right on course. Last year a teenager was heard to say on his journey home, #BHF2014 - 63 Years and Counting 5 Thank you George Festival Secretary As Festival Secretary, there are many too much trouble and he is a key aspects to the weekends festivities member of the team. I even found that need organising. We have a him in Blackpool at 11pm outside dedicated team of helpers working Sanuk last year just checking that tirelessly, not just over the 4 days everyone was ok and off the buses at Easter but all year round, making before retiring to his hotel with a nice sure all goes to plan. But personally, hot “non alcoholic “ drink. one person always stands out for Every team and team organiser will me. The ‘gentle man’ we all know as know George, as he ensures that he Festival President, Mr George Robson. meets them all at some point over I “inherited” George from the Danson the weekend, if only to shake their Dynasty and boy am I glad that he hand and introduce himself. He can reversed his decision not to retire at be found patrolling the pitches, both the same time as Peter 3 years ago! at Stanley Park and the Cricket Club, He felt his time was up and should as well as at Bispham...the red fleece stand down to let someone else take being visible from a great distance. over. His biggest fear was that the Since we re-branded the Festival as changes we were planning would BHF, we also adopted a motto, and leave him redundant. After a little no one has embraced it more than bit of persuasion, he agreed to give George. If “Bigger And Better” could the new team a try and I know he be applied to a person, then George has never looked back. George has Robson would fit that category supported every new concept, idea perfectly! Without him, the whole or change with open arms...and Festival would not be the success it an open mind, helping to drive the is now, and I personally would never Festival forward. Sometimes he is like be able to find someone to fill those a kid in a sweet shop, his enthusiasm very large boots. His enthusiasm is is almost terrifying! He attends infectious, and his love of Blackpool every committee meeting, never is refreshing to a Sandgrownun’ who complaining about the 7 hour round often forgets how special it is. But trip it takes. His input is well thought it is his passion for all things hockey through, well presented and definitely that still amazes me, and for that we always well received. are all very grateful. George, it’s an Some jobs require a certain amount honour and a pleasure to have you of decorum, and this George has on my side, as a friend and on the by the bucket load. He looks after team.....here’s to the next 50 years. the Mayor on his annual visit to the Thank you. Festival, liaises with the Cricket Club Dave Gee and can even appease the members Festival Secretary when things threaten to get a bit too rowdy in the clubhouse!! He will ensure he arrives at the Festival in good time to help set up, and is BHF2014 would not be the same without the help of many other people. always the last to leave Blackpool The committee would like to extend thanks to all organisations on the Tuesday when he is sure and individuals who have contributed towards making the festival everything has gone off without a possible, you all know who you are! hitch. No job is too big, too small or 6 Official Programme 2014 The man George aged 12. with a heart of gold... Where do you start when summing up 50 years of Mr George Robson’s Easter escapades? According to Julie Andrews in Sound of Music, you start at the very beginning so here goes... Mr Robson Mr Robson at Easter were marked out on Stanley Can! For not many people know that Born 16th June 1944 in Newcastle Park on grass areas used for Football George is an organist too, “pulling out upon Tyne, George attended his and family recreation. the stops” at several local churches on first Festival in 1965 when Hild Bede a regular basis. Along with many other Being a North East man George has College at Durham University came to things, George has a love of Music and a keen interest in Football but not as the Festival. Within their ranks was an at the Easter disco has been seen on a Magpie, Mackem or Smoggie, no... “Old Beghian”(an old boy of St Bees the dance floor waving his arms about George is a Spartan! Sporting the school in Cumbria) who was about to to “Hi Ho Silver lining” and “We are Green and White of Blyth Spartans embark on a teaching career as well as the Champions” although he is not so where he is a much loved figure and a lifetime of dedication to his beloved keen on Dizzy Rascal and Snoop Dog. sometimes Match sponsor. A quiet Morpeth Hockey club who he joined in unassuming man George never seeks George also deserves the title of “Mr 1967 and Blackpool Hockey Festival. the limelight preferring to be in the Blackpool” for the work he has done As an Old Beghian and past President background, a man quietly getting on in fostering relations with Blackpool of the Old Boys association, George is with jobs and attending to matters Cricket Club.