President's Daily Diary

Back in the groove after camping in Cornwall; weather not bad. Also had the pleasure of being at Old Trafford on Sunday for our stunning 8-2 victory over Arsenal (sorry Graham).

Started off by emailing all pool umpires to remind them to update their availability for September; the pre-season fixtures and tournaments are coming thick and fast. Also made an umpire inactive as they had failed, despite being given an extension period over the summer, to record their 3 games.

David Starmer, a long serving member of the association retired. David started playing hockey in 1945 and he moved to Devon in 1988, umpiring his first game in the county with Roger Reffell at Sidmouth on the grass. Latterly, David umpired only on Wednesday’s at Exeter University but has now decided at 78 to call it a day. Thank you very much David for your support of Devon Hockey over the last 23 years.

Also, a German Umpire (Tilman Schulz-Klingner) will be joining the association whilst he studies at the University of Exeter for 9 months. It will be nice to get a different perspective on umpiring from him whilst he is in Devon. I have emailed him some relevant information.

Appointments for this weekend have been published for the 3rd and 4th September but there has not been much availability added and not many games (some of the games have no times Torbay HC so DHUA will not be appointing to them as per our policies and procedures).

Updated the fixtures for the ISCA pre-season tournament at Exeter School on Saturday 10 September involving ISCA, Plymouth Marjon and Truro.