Graham crowns ten year hockey milestone

A hockey fanatic from Solihull who has officiated the sport at World Cups and European Championships is celebrating a decade as a referee.

Graham Reynolds, 51, from Chelmsley Wood, regularly travels across the UK to officiate grassroots matches for under-10s through to over-80s, and highlights have seen him officiating at the Grand Masters Hockey World Cup in Barcelona, and the Grand Masters European Cup in Glasgow.

Graham’s stint has also seen him officiate a successful Guinness World Record attempt for the most amount of players used in a hockey game, which totalled 367 players during an eight-hour match.

Some may say it’s a far cry from his day job at Tamworth-based workforce management firm Crown Workforce Management, where he works in the technical implementation team upgrading software for clients, but for Graham the two complement each other.

Graham, a former goalkeeper for Olton and West Warwickshire Hockey Club, said: “I like to think I am quite an analytical person who likes to problem solve, which I think helps me both on the hockey pitch ensuring the game runs smoothly and lawfully, and at work when I am upgrading clients’ software.

“I love hockey – to the point where I now use all of my annual leave to dedicate time to officiating the sport!

“The older age brackets are going from strength-to-strength, which is great to see, and I am regularly asked to officiate these games, where the pace may not be as quick, but the skill certainly is.

“I recently umpired a match in Kent between England over-80s against the Netherlands – of which the oldest player was 89 – and I’ve been invited back to officiate their re-match in The Hague next year.

“Hockey has taken me to some wonderful places across the globe where I have made some great friends both playing and officiating, and for anyone interested in taking up the sport I would recommend visiting the England Hockey website.

“I have no plans to hang up my whistle just yet, and I’m very much looking forward to another ten years.”