At about 4.45 Sunday afternoon I'll be running out for my 700th game for the ANU Women's Hockey Club. I think that's quite an achievement so indulge me for a while if you will, like you do every Sunday actually, while I talk about why I'm still dragging this 55-year-old body out onto the field.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
I've been playing hockey for 51 years. My first team was the East Orange Budgies under 5s. My mother was a hockey player and I wanted to follow in her footsteps. She was a much better player than I have ever been. I remember going to her games as a child, watching her sprint down the field in her brown pinafore, stiff and tied at the waist with a yellow cord. She was quick (she once competed in athletics against Betty Cuthbert), something I have never been. I've always been a thinker. My father once said if my sister (she was quick too, and fit) and I were the one person we would have played hockey for Australia, the hockey body and brain combined.
But alas, such heights were never reached. I played a bit of rep hockey at school and later have scraped into ACT teams in the masters divisions but for the most part I have been happy to languish in the lower grades.
After 700 games I still love it every time I run onto the field. I'll admit there have been a few seasons in recent years where I didn't enjoy it so much. For a while it felt like life was hitting me, like those balls do at training when you've left your shinpads at home; even hockey struggled to pull me out of that despair at times. I've struggled too with accepting that I am 55 and that perhaps I don't have as much to contribute anymore (in so many aspects of my life to be honest, not just at hockey) but that's something many women my age have to contend with. But you polish those proverbial boots and get on with it.
When I think about my favourite moments, two instantly spring to mind.
In 2006 I made my first grand final for a very long time. It was a new bunch of girls but we clicked from the start and had a very successful season. We were playing our arch rivals, the game went to a second set of penalty strokes and, by some miracle, I slotted the winning shot in the sudden-death round. My son was only three, and he came shooting over from the sideline, like the masses that flooded the SCG after Buddy Franklin kicked his 1000th goal, and jumped high into my arms with a big grin on his face. I still love it when he comes to my games, my biggest supporter. (Although now I question his intentions given most of my teammates are attractive young women his own age.) A handful of that team still plays together even now. It was a special team.
But my proudest moment came in 2014 when I convinced my daughter to play in my team. We were short during university holidays and she, and a school friend, donned the royal blue and white and played one game. It appears, much to my disappointment, it was a one-off thing. I don't love hockey as much as you do, mum, she told me, I just like playing with my friends.
Which, after all these years, is why I still play too. I have made lifelong friends playing hockey. We have each other's backs on and off the field. I am still friends with some of those little Budgies from under 5s and I have made new friends in my 50s, whether they be teammates or opposition. There's nothing like sharing a glass of rosé after a hard match and analysing a game, solving the problems of the world.
Which is another reason why I keep playing. Those said problems disappear for a few hours every week once we're on the pitch. For a few hours we're no longer someone's partner, or mother, or daughter, it doesn't matter what we do for a living, or what we're studying, what's happened during the week. We can leave all those troubles behind and knock a little white ball into the back of the net and all is right with the world (assuming said ball finds the back of the net, after 700 games I still don't like losing).
I still believe I have something to contribute on the field, that my hockey brain is as sharp as ever, and there's nothing I love more than young teammates who listen and are happy to do all the running and set me up in front of goal to score.
Some people have questioned my intentions in recent years, but I'm a champion of women playing sport at all stages of their life, making sure people recognise that what we wanted at 25 isn't what we're after once we hit mid-life, with baggage in tow, but that doesn't mean we're any less committed to our teams every weekend, or we love our hockey any less.
Two of the most inspiring women in our club are Janette and Margie, who have played 939 and 729 games respectively; they are in their mid-60s. I was horrified when I worked out I might have to play for another 12 seasons to reach Janette's milestone, do my knees have that in them?
It's the biggest sporting cliché in the land but let's take it one game at a time. And today that game is 700. Go me.