Longridge Hockey Club

May 20th, 2009

Longridge Hockey Club’s Chairperson Lynn Hoyle last night (Saturday 16 May) picked up the prestigious Club Member of the Year Award at the inaugural national hockey awards ceremony at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nottingham.

Lynn has devoted 33 years to our club, turning her hand to everything from coaching and umpiring to chairing the committee. As a former 1st XI coach, one of Lynn’s most significant contributions this past year has been as mentor to up-and-coming coaches. She has also recently turned her attention to coaching the two other senior teams and the junior section of the club. As well as helping to organise umpires every week, she is highly involved in the organisation of the club’s third team, the development team, testing her motivational skills as well as her coaching abilities. Lynn can also be found coaching and umpiring on a Sunday morning with the club’s U13 and U15 teams and it is her enthusiasm for junior development that has been instrumental in the development and delivery of Longridge’s ClubsFirst status and Club School Link.

Commenting on her award, Lynn said “Thank you very much. I’m very honoured to have been chosen from the people who have nominated me. Longridge is only a small club compared to a lot of the major clubs. We’ve got three senior teams and four junior teams. I also spend quite a lot of time going into the primary schools because we’ve have not strong links in the past; we’ve just organised two primary school festivals and had 90-100 children taking part. My big push at the moment is getting primary schools in the hockey mode and get them promoted from the bottom upwards.

“It’s been a very exciting night and very exciting to actually receive an award – it was totally unexpected. I looked at the category and it was a very strong category so I didn’t think I had a chance. It’s been a superb night.”

England Hockey’s Chief Executive Sally Munday said “To have the grassroots of the sport mixing with the elite as they have tonight shows the true spirit of the Hockey Family. The look on the faces of the award winners said it all. These people give their time week in, week out, and they do it for the love of the game. They don’t expect to win awards, so being able to give something back to these selfless individuals has been an absolute pleasure.”

Andy Hunt, Chief Executive of the British Olympic Association commented “British sport wouldn’t exist and couldn’t run without the commitment from volunteers. It is always incredibly inspirational to see these individuals that have given up so much of their lives for the success of each of their sports. Some of the stories tonight almost brought you to tears really in terms of what the individuals said about what it meant for them but frankly what they have given to the sport is truly awesome.”

Well done to Lynn on behalf of all the club she thoroughly deserved the award for all the hard work, dedication and encouragement she has given to the club and its members over many years.