Powell Hockey

Skills. Techniques. Tactics
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84797-500-3
Verlag: Crowood
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 112 Seiten

Crowood Sports Guides provide sound, practical advice that will make you a better player, whether you are learning the basic skills, discovering more advanced techniques or reviewing the fundamentals of your sport. Features in this book are: Information boxes containing Top Tips and Key Points for the coach and player; Sequence photographs and detailed diagrams in colour; An introduction to the history and rules of the game, and equipment; A thorough examination of the core skills of hockey (ball carrying, passing, shooting and defending skills); Tactical analysis of the attacking and defending principles of playing the game; Valuable advice on techniques, coaching, nutrition and the competitive structure within the sport. Aimed at those who play hockey at any level and age as well as their coaches. Gives sound practical advice and examines the core skills of hockey. Covers tactical analysis of the attacking and defending principles.Superbly illustrated with 130 sequence photographs and detailed diagrams in colour.Jane Powell is the Performance Coaching Manager of England Hockey. Another title in the highly successful Crowood Sports Guides series.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Powell, Jane

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1

THE HISTORY OF HOCKEY

Games with curved sticks and a ball have been played throughout history and in various regions of the world. In Egypt there are 4,000-year-old drawings of the game being played. Hurling dates back to before 1272BC, and there are illustrations from 500BC, in Ancient Greece. There were various hockey-like games played throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, and the word ‘hockey’ was recorded in the Galway Statutes of 1527.

The modern game of hockey grew from the game played in English public schools in the early nineteenth century. The first club was created in 1849 at Blackheath in south-east London, but the modern rules grew out of a version of hockey played by members of Middlesex Cricket Clubs for winter sport.

The Hockey Association was founded in 1886 and the first match was held between England and Ireland on 16 March 1895 at Richmond Hockey Club. England finished as 5–0 victors. The International Rules Board was founded in 1900.

Hockey was played at the summer Olympics in 1908 and 1920. It was dropped from the games by the organizing committee in 1924, leading to the foundation of the Fédération Internationale de Hockey sur Gazon (the FIH) as an international governing body by seven continental European nations. Hockey was reinstated to the Olympic Games in 1928, and in 1970, men’s hockey was united under the FIH.

The game had been introduced to India by British servicemen, and the first clubs formed in Calcutta in 1885. The Beighton Cup and the Aga Khan tournament had commenced within ten years. Entering the Olympic Games in 1928, India won all five of its games without conceding a goal, and went on to win in 1932 until 1956, and then in 1964 and 1980. Pakistan won in 1960, 1968 and 1984.

In the early 1970s, artificial turf fields began to be used in competitions. The introduction of synthetic pitches to replace grass has completely changed most aspects of hockey. The game, as well as the material used to play, has taken a definitive turn, transforming the game, gaining mainly in speed. In order to take into account the specificities of this surface, new tactics and new techniques have been developed, often followed by the establishment of new rules to take account of these techniques. The switch to synthetic surfaces essentially ended Indian and Pakistani domination of the sport. Artificial turf is far more costly than grass, and too expensive for the two countries to introduce widely in comparison to the wealthier European countries. From the 1970s Australia, The Netherlands and Germany have dominated the sport at the Olympics.

Women do not seem to have played hockey widely before the modern era. Women’s hockey was first played at British universities and schools, and the first club, Moseley Ladies Hockey Club, was founded in 1887. The first national association was the Irish Ladies Hockey Union in 1894, and although rebuffed by the Hockey Association, Women’s hockey grew rapidly around the world. This led to the formation of the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) in 1927. Initially this did not include many continental European countries where women played as sections of Men’s Hockey Associations and were affiliated to the FIH. The IFWHA held conferences every three years, and the tournaments associated with these were the primary IFWHA competitions. These tournaments were non-competitive until 1975.

By the early 1970s there were 22 associations with women’s sections in the FIH and 36 associations in the IFWHA. Discussions were started about a common rule book. The FIH introduced competitive tournaments in 1974, forcing the acceptance of the principle of competitive hockey by the IFWHA in 1973. It took until 1982 for the two bodies to merge, but this allowed the introduction of women’s hockey to the Olympic Games from 1980 where, as in the men’s game, The Netherlands, Germany and Australia have been consistently strong.

The game of hockey is played widely across the world. In England it is a popular family orientated sport, played mainly in clubs by both men and women. The game is well liked in many schools, particularly in the independent sector and offers a lifetime of both sporting and social opportunities for players, officials and administrators alike.

Hockey, or field hockey as it is also known to differentiate it from ice hockey, is an eleven-a-side game played on a pitch 91.4m × 55m (100yd × 60yd) with a ball of 23cm (9in) circumference. Each player has a stick with a rounded head to play the ball with the ultimate aim of scoring goals by putting the ball in the other team’s goal. Sticks are about a metre long and weigh 340g–790g (12–28oz).

The rules of hockey are very similar to the rules of football except that players must use sticks instead of their feet to play the ball. There are eleven players on a team made up of a goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and attackers. The only player on the field who is allowed to use their feet and hands as well as their stick is the goalkeeper. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive explanation of the rules.

In England and the rest of the UK the season lasts from September until May.

The History of the Game in England

The origins of the game can be traced back to the earliest civilizations of the world, but the modern game of field hockey was developed in the British Isles. The modern game was started in England in the mid-1800s as an alternative to football for cricketers seeking a winter sport.

The first organized club was the Blackheath Football and Hockey Club, which dates back to at least 1861. Another London club, at Teddington, helped refine the game by introducing a number of the modern rules and concepts, including the introduction of a spherical ball, which replaced a rubber cube. Most importantly, they instituted the striking circle, which was incorporated into the rules of the newly-founded Hockey Association (men’s) in London in 1886. The All England Women’s Hockey Association was then founded in 1895, becoming the first women’s national sporting governing body.

The game spread throughout the British Empire, largely with the British army and this is one reason why India, Pakistan and Australia are so formidable, as all were once British colonies. Today, field hockey is played all over the world by a variety of countries and field hockey is currently recognized as the second largest team sport in the world, after football.

The International Game

The first men’s international match was held between England and Ireland on 16 March 1895 at Richmond Hockey Club, with England finishing as 5–0 victors. The women played their first official international match on 2 March 1896 when they travelled to Dublin to compete against Ireland. The Irish team won the match 2–0 with both goals coming in the first half.

Men’s field hockey first featured in the London Olympics of 1908 but the women’s game was not introduced to the Olympics until the Moscow Games of 1980. The highlight for the British game in modern times was an Olympic gold medal for the men in 1988 (Seoul, South Korea). It was the third time gold had been achieved; other successes came in 1908 (London) and 1920 (Antwerp). The British women’s team won a bronze medal at the 1992 games (Barcelona).

The Men’s World Cup was introduced in 1971. England’s best success to date in the World Cup came in 1986 when the men finished with a silver medal after losing 2–1 to Australia in the final, hosted on home soil at Willesden. The women won the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) tournament against Wales in 1975 (Edinburgh), the tournament that preceded the World Cup, which was introduced in 1979.

For many years the women played an annual international fixture at Wembley Stadium, regularly attracting over 50,000 spectators. The first international at Wembley was held in 1951 when England beat Ireland 6–1. March 1978 saw a record-breaking crowd of 65,000 packed into Wembley to watch England draw 2–2 with the USA.

Clubs representing England in Europe have also enjoyed success, most recently with Reading winning the 2003 Men’s European Club Championships in a nail-biting final where they came from 1–0 down to take the game to penalty strokes, emerging as eventual winners. Olton and West Warwickshire achieved a silver medal in the 2003 Women’s European Club Championships losing out to Den Bosch in the final.

Throughout the history of hockey, the main factor in shaping the game we know today came from experimenting with the rules. Hockey began as an eleven-a-side game, with two substitutes. In 1927, the need for two umpires was recognized, with each umpire looking after each half of the pitch. In 1949 the radius of the shooting circle became sixteen yards, although this was not introduced into the women’s game until nearly twenty years later. The penalty stroke as we know it today, replaced the penalty bully in 1963, followed shortly afterwards by the sideline hit replacing the sideline roll in.

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