FIRST the good news. Imagine a year where Scottish women’s and men’s teams qualify for European championships at every level from under 18 to full international. That year being topped off by the women winning the gold at the qualifying tournament hosted on home soil in Glasgow in front of passionate, capacity crowds.
Well there’s actually no need to use your imagination as this is precisely what was achieved by Scotland’s hockey players in 2018/19. However, unless, like me, you are a hockey obsessive or happened to stumble on the BBC’s online coverage of EuroHockey Championship II in Glasgow you will have been unlikely to be aware of this, in Scottish sporting terms, unprecedented success.
Hockey, I believe, is an almost perfect modern sport, unlike football, rugby, and to a lesser extent cricket, it has always been played by men and women. It is incredibly inclusive with a thriving “Masters” scene with internationals being played at 35+ up to 80+. There is also a burgeoning ParaHockey programme, for players with an intellectual disability, right across Europe. In addition to this the game itself has been transformed by being played on artificial surfaces and by major rule changes all designed to make it a much more appealing spectator sport.
This begs the question, given all this, why the almost complete absence of coverage, unless during the Olympics, by our major terrestrial broadcasters? A personal experience springs to mind here. In 2014 I was leaving the Glasgow hockey centre after watching Scotland women in the Commonwealth Games, a lad was on the phone beside me, and for the purposes of decency I’ve moderated the language, “Ken when I got the tickets for the lassies hockey, I thought it wid be jolly crap. It was jolly brilliant, jolly fast, jolly brutal. I jolly loved it.”
Are there too many men in sports broadcasting who have outdated, stereotyped sexist perceptions of a game which for them is “for the lassies”, not, at the heart of it, a “real” game?
Scottish Hockey has tried to take matters into its own hands by developing its own media channels broadcasting not only international matches but indoor and outdoor domestic club games. However, yet again these, in reality, will only be seen by those already convinced that hockey is “jolly brilliant”.
In 2018 my club, MJV Dundee Wanderers, hosted the Women’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship featuring the top clubs in Europe containing multiple Olympic and World gold medal female athletes. We could not persuade either the BBC or STV to even mention the event let alone send anyone to cover it, such was their lack of interest.
Despite this Scottish Hockey now has over 12,000 active members, an 80% growth in the past four years.
The astute amongst you will have noticed the “first the good news”, at the beginning of the article. Here comes the “bad news”.
Scotland’s men were the first to compete at the elite level in the EuroHockey Championships in Antwerp last week, and despite defeating Wales and drawing with Ireland were relegated, on goal difference, after losing to England.
This highlights, in my opinion, the difficulty that our teams will face on stepping up to the Championships. Scotland, Wales and England all compete as individual nations at Commonwealth and European level. However, in the Olympics, the premier hockey tournament, we compete as Team GB. Because of this unique position Great Britain Hockey, owned equally by the hockey associations of Wales, Scotland and England, decided to appoint England as the nominated country in terms of securing qualification for the Olympics. In other words, in terms of Olympic Hockey qualification, Team GB is effectively Team England.
This has had a massive impact in terms of funding by UK Sport with over £17 million being allocated to the English Hockey Association in the four years in the run up to Tokyo 2020. This is in stark contrast to the just over £553,000 Scottish Hockey was able to spend on all its international squads in 2018.
The funding from UK Sport has enabled GB Hockey to place 40 women and 40 men on both full and part time contracts in preparation for Tokyo. All of the current England women’s and men’s squads are on full time GB contracts but only four Scots, Alan Forsyth , Chris Grassick, Amy Costello and Sarah Robertson
The recent achievements of Scottish hockey teams need to be seen and celebrated both within the perspective of the named nation framework and the almost complete lack of coverage by both BBC and STV.
Finally, those EuroHockey Men’s Championships. They were won by Belgium, a country which achieved independence from its larger neighbour way back in 1830.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel