My earliest club hockey memories: • Travelling back from a game against Bournemouth in the Purple People Eater (A Purple Capri owned by the teacher responsible for getting me into hockey). On the twisting and turning Ringwood to Salisbury road, overtaking on blind corners in the dark. To this day I still think of that journey every time I travel on that road, which is quite a lot…thanks Polks! •

Having already shared with you how i got started playing hockey, perhaps some of you reading this would like to share how you got started playing your team sport. While i greatly admire all sport ( i love playing squash, cycling and swimming), because my book is about team sports, and because hockey has been such a big influence on my life, i’ve decided that this blog will only be

It started just before Easter 1980. As an eleven year old, I sat on the hard, shiny wooden floor of the main hall, with over a hundred other children. I remember being bored, not really listening, fiddling with my very sweaty hands…..it was always hot in that hall. Suddenly, something caught my attention. The person speaking, who I assume was the head master, but I can’t be quite sure, was