UK hockey

Roger Self, the manager of Great Britain’s 1988 Olympic gold medal winning men's hockey side, has died aged 77. See here for an article by HWC committee member Rod Gilmour.

See The Hockey Museum website for a full obituary and funeral arrangements.

Surbiton completed the League championship and Cup double with Sunday's comfortable 5-0 win over Clifton Robinsons, the defending Cup holders, to add to the Champions title won last week with a 3-1 victory against Holcombe.

They have lost only one game this season when a 53-game unbeaten league run was ended with a 3-2 defeat by Leicester in February and they have now won four successive League championships and three of the last four cup finals.

WIMBLEDON, led by coach Ben Hawes, fly to Eindhoven on Wednesday for their second taste of European club hockey at the Euro Hockey League KO16 tournament at the home of the newly formed Oranje-Rood club.

Hawes said: “Last year at the same stage we came up against one of Europe’s top performers Amsterdam and lost 1-3 but we have that valuable experience behind us.”

This year they face an equally tough challenge on Saturday against the German champions UHC Hamburg, who have won this competition three times since its inception in 2007/08.

The Hockey Museum has launched a limited-edition calendar for 2017. It covers 16 months (September 2016 to December 2017) so that it fully incorporates the hockey season – and you can start using it right away!

The Hockey Museum has been awarded a grant of £15,300 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to enable it to digitise its collection of nearly 100 old hockey films dating back to the 1930s.

GREAT BRITAIN’S men have had to make changes as they complete their build-up to the Rio Olympics at the four-nation ERGO Masters in Dusseldorf.

They would have expected to make the trip with the 16 players and three reserves announced for Rio last month but captain Barry Middleton (shoulder), Ulsterman David Ames (shin) and Nick Catlin (hip) are nursing minor knocks.

George Pinner, after an outstanding display of goalkeeping, was chosen as Britain’s best player in the 2016 Hero Champions Trophy by members of the Hockey Writers Club.

HOLCOMBE clinched the final play-off place in the Investec Premier Division with a 3-2 win at Clifton with goals from Emily Maguire, Nicola White and Sarah Jones. The hopes of the other contenders East Grinstead were ended after a 2-1 home defeat by the bottom club Buckingham who, despite the win, are relegated.

Bowdon Hightown avoided automatic relegation, recovering from a 3-2 deficit to win 5-3 at Reading, and face next month’s relegation/promotion play-offs with the Conference champions Slough, Wakefield and Sutton Coldfield.

SURBITON'S Wales international Rupert Shipperley scored a double in his side’s 2-1 win at Reading which took them above their opponents into second place, and brought them a second success, on the Premier Division’s double header weekend. Shipperley said: “We’re starting to get the momentum and progressing in the right direction, leading up to the play-offs, after three defeats in February.”