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Weekend of Two Sports and Two Halves!

By Inge Bevers

You may remember I was a hockey umpire before becoming hands that consisted of about 10 adults each and 2 or 3 juniors.
a cricket umpire. As a hockey goal keeper, my love for indoor The adults, however, decided to act like 4-year olds. With 10
hockey is massive – where else can you kick the ball onto the minutes on the clock, the general standard of play was very
board in order to enable your right-wing forward to receive much below par and I hoped stopping the game and instructing
the ball and score a goal? Absolutely loved it! Oh yes, and no the captains to tell their teams that they would have a choice:
one, no, really, NO ONE, of my team mates were allowed in start playing hockey or people would get some ‘time off’. Safe to
MY circle, except of course one of them had been silly enough say, they chose the latter and only after 5 cards (mine) in total
to persuade the umpire to give a penalty corner. The circle was made them think I really WAS serious about not really agreeing
mine, and mine alone. with how they conducted themselves.

But I digress. I was going to tell you about this weekend of 2 Both captains at the end of the match half admitted that it
sports and 2 halves. A few more than 2 halves, that is. hadn’t been a very good match. And my colleague for the next
When I moved to England from Ireland, I wanted to get to match, who had seen most of the 2nd half, asked me did I want
know the ‘English way of doing sports’ as quickly as possible. some time to ‘gather myself’ again. Answer was no, as the fact
I looked up a local hockey club hoping hockey and cricket that I was trying to babysit 20 ‘eejits’ didn’t really have an effect
would be as ‘akin’ as in Ireland and Holland, started umpiring on my general sense of humour nor does it affect my approach
for them, did the online exam and ‘CV-ed’ myself into a Level 1 to the next match.
recognition. I basically sent a bare-minimum hockey umpiring
CV to the appointment officer who sent it on to the regional The 1st men’s team play at a level just below where they get
English Hockey representative who couldn’t really NOT recog- league umpires, so the standard is actually quite good. They
nise me as a Level 1 umpire. challenge me at a different level and my colleague usually
understands what style of umpiring is required to manage the
After I had been told I was going to join a female cricket umpire match. Yesterday I was umpiring with a Northern League panel
development panel and I was therefore also joining the Bir- umpire and I must admit I felt quite relieved after a couple of
mingham League Cricket Umpire panel, I also decided to um- minutes that I not only saw my colleague communicate with me
pire the Worcester Indoor Cricket League and ended up doing but also do the same as what I try to do: observe reception of a
the Hereford Indoor League as well. pass and then look around where the ball could be going next
and where trouble could arise. Needless to say, we did have a
My 4 winters in Worcestershire have therefore seen me umpire few cards, but they were all technical rather than the ‘naughty
hockey on Saturdays and between January and March, indoor step’ type and the match was a great advert for hockey.
cricket on Sundays. And when I moved to Cheshire in October
2019, I continued doing the hockey umpiring on Saturdays for And then today, I was in Birmingham umpiring the BUCS
Winnington Park Hockey Club and as my new cricket club Oul- Indoor National Women’s Finals. Originally, I was asked to
ton Park plays indoor cricket locally, I now do indoor cricket on manage the day, but one of the 6 women appointed to umpire
Sundays in Herfordshire and every other Wednesday here. had to withdraw and I decided to umpire. BUCS then appoint-
ed a TD so I could concentrate on the umpiring. For those of
My weekend of 2 sports and 2 halves therefore involves outdoor you who aren’t involved in officiating in England & Wales, ECB
hockey and indoor cricket. Outdoor hockey by the way very have identified women’s cricket as one of the main strategic
often involves 4 halves as even in a big club as Winnington development points for 2020-2024 and they have also identified
Park, there can be a shortage of umpires and I often do 2 home officiating as a main strategic development at the same time.
matches or even an away match as well as a home match if that
is at all possible. Yesterday it was 2 home matches: first the 3rd Two plus two being five, ‘we’ are now trying to get into a habit
men’s team and the match after was a 1st men’s team match. of having women umpiring women’s events as much as possible.
Some appointment officers understand this better than others,
‘Our’ men are usually well behaved and know what I’m like as however, and I was delighted that the West-Midlands were
an umpire – after retirement in the top women’s league in Hol- asked to appoint umpires to this tournament as the WM Ap-
land I found out my nickname was ‘the bitch’ but that is a dif- pointments Officer is almost as adamant to get as many female
ferent story – and even though my umpiring style and decisions umpires involved whichever the gender of the players as I am.
might not always be the same as my colleague’s at the other end, So we had a first ever with 6 female umpires for the finals day.
usually a few words, gestures and louder/longer whistles help
players not going over that imaginary line between playing and And BUCS decided to appoint a male TD for the day to replace
sitting time. me, but I knew the guy and we work really well together so basi-
cally things happened the way I had intended them to happen. I
Unfortunately, yesterday was a bit different. After about 3 Satur- think I have admitted before to being a capable bully if I want to
days of no cards, my colleague and myself had 2 teams on our as well as having a certain nickname.

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