South Africa's hockey umpires are something extra-special in world hockey circles

30 March 2010

Leading FIH official, South African Steve Jaspan's One-Two Hockey Viewpoint.

South African hockey has absorbed a certain amount of criticism over the past few months but there have been some major success stories. 

John Wright, SA’s top men’s umpire and rated by many as the best on the planet was selected to Umpire the World Cup Final in New Delhi just over a week ago.  He thus adds to his growing list of achievements having now umpired one Olympic Final, 2 World Cup Finals, a handful of Champions Trophy Finals, and a fistful of European Cup finals.

Phenomenal stuff!  If this were a major sport in South Africa it would be headlines in the media!

To add to this magnificent umpiring success, Gary Simmonds was selected, at his first outdoor World Cup to umpire the bronze medal match – a superb achievement.  Gary umpired in the Beijing Olympics and Indoor World Cup in Vienna in 2007.

Clive McMurray has revolutionized Umpire Management in World Hockey and remains the FIH’s number one choice for this position in all major World Level Events.  He was recently awarded the Guus Lathouwers Award by the FIH for his services to umpiring and was once again Umpires Manager at the World Cup.

We now await with interest the progress of our top women’s umpires at the Women’s World Cup (later this year in Rosario) especially Marelize de Klerk, who has a glittering umpiring CV to match John Wright’s.  Much is also expected of Michelle Joubert who will be umpiring at the Women’s Champions Trophy in Nottingham from 10 – 18 July 2010.

Add to this the fact that SAHA Vice-President, Sheila Brown has the singular achievement of being the first SAHA person to be appointed Tournament Director (TD) at the Champions Trophy and World Cup, in Rosario in August/September of this year.

SAHA President, Dave Carr highly respected by SASCOC, has been appointed as SA’s Chef de Mission for the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore from 14 – 26 August 2010.

All of this on the back of a really heartening performance by the SA Men’s National Team at the World Cup in New Delhi where they improved their World Ranking by finishing 10th (of 120 hockey nations worldwide) and came within a whisker of playing for 7th place!

 

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