Early this year Brando Smit on behalf of the South African Hockey association (SAHA) took on the project of developing the year of the youth umpire in South Africa and say bore the concept of Mr YOYU and spread the word to the different provincial organisations to let him ‘come alive’ in the province. We jumped at the idea – pretty much an “any excuse for a party” idea.

The 16th of June is a public holiday in South Africa. It is known as youth day and is a day of remembrance for Hector Peterson a scholar who was killed on 16 June 1976 in the Soweto Riots. Children were fighting for education during the heat of the apartheid struggle and now we live in a time where many of us are privileged to have an education and look back on those times and the people that fought for the nation we now have.

As preparation for the various youth tournament that will take place in the upcoming school holidays roughly 20 umpires arrived to run the regulatory beep test, with mixed fortunes the eventual last man standing was in fact our very own FIH Athletes panel representative on the Umpire committee, Lindsey Wright who reached an admiral level 11.6

After the run the group met for breakfast and celebrated YOYU’s 1st birthday in style, cake and all.

In the next 2 months the Northerns Blues hockey Association is proud to be sending the following Youth umpires (under 25 yrs) to the respective tournaments:

On 16 June 2011, umpires from the Northerns Blues hockey Association celebrated the 1st birthday of YOYU (the Year of the Youth Umpire mascot, as initiative of the South African Hockey Association Umpires body)
U14 Festival: Ella v d Merwe, Mignon Klopper, Remig Cellarius
U16 Festival: Ruani van Schalkwyk, Evette de Goude
U18 Festival: Mareli Louw, Michelle Prinsloo
U16 Interprovincal Tournament: Robyn Cotton, Jade Stellenboom, Amy Samuels, Elricke Bronkhorst, Henry Marsh, Ivan Olivier and Paul Botha
U18 Interprovincial Tournament: Daleen Ferreira, Darren Hubach, Gershwin Reid, Chris Gerber,

In July and August our National masterpiece see the following Northerns Umpires attending
Universities Week: A - Kathleen Faling, Brando Smit, Franco Olivier
Universities Week: B - Wiseman Nyamza, Kokkie Sieling, Henno Pretorius, John Wright
Senior IPT B: Mariana Putter
Senior IPT A: Michelle Joubert, John Wright, Peter Wright