North West Hockey Umpiring Association report

Season 2007 / 2008

Umpires have been appointed to N2W matches and sometimes to NW1 matches during this season.  The NWHUA has become a victim of its own success in that more of our umpires have been promoted to the NHUA panels and then to NPUA for the EHL.  Very few new umpires have joined NWHUA to umpire on the neutral panel. Those who do join NWHUA tend to do so for the insurance!

The Saturday Appointments Secretary, Tony Shutt, has worked tremendously hard to find new umpiring talent to fill the gaps and his enthusiasm is to be commended. There is some optimism for next season.

The Sunday Appointments Secretary, Bill Connor, helped by the President, Chris Leyland, has also worked extremely hard to ensure that many Sunday matches have been supplied with umpires.

The NWHUA fulfilled all its commitments to appoint to the various rounds of the Cheshire Plate and Cup and also to the Cheshire Under Twenty One Competition last September.

In a new idea the Cheshire cup final between Brooklands and Bowdon was played “midweek” under floodlight with a decent crowd attendance. This match was a splendid advert for North West hockey and ended up 1-1 after extra time. The visitors won the subsequent penalty stroke shoot-out.  The match was umpired well by David Ellcock and Matthew Simpson.

The North West and North Young Umpire Action Groups (YUAG) continue to thrive.

The new initiative which was started last season to do practical umpire coaching and mentoring sessions have continued this season centred around Sunday afternoon matches. There have been three such events this season, culminating at Bowdon on Saturday, 3^rd May with the men’s and women’s EH cup semi-finals.

The second John Robinson Memorial Award was presented to Paul Beckett by me at the annual NWHUA Dinner on Friday, 4^th April, 2008 in the presence of more than forty diners.

Once again I have enjoyed representing NWHUA on the Cheshire HA Committee and I shall be pleased to continue to serve in this capacity next season if required.

Chris  Todd