09.08.1926 – 2026

It is with sadness that we learned of the passing of Joyce Cole at the end of January. Joyce was born in 1926 and started her hockey playing career whilst evacuated from Chiswick to Blackpool. She had not played hockey before but the school she went to was ‘a hockey-playing school’ and she took up the sport. As a newcomer, Joyce was ‘dumped’ in goal – but luckily the PE teacher was the Lancashire County goalkeeper, so Joyce received good coaching and soon made the school First XI.

On leaving school, Joyce joined the Civil Service in the Department of Health. When relocated back to London, she transferred to the Department of National Insurance and joined the Civil Service Sports Council (CSSC). At first there were no goalkeeper vacancies in the Civil Service clubs, but she eventually found a home in the Ministry of Labour hockey team.

Joyce went to the Civil Service County trials and was selected for the Second XI and later the First XI. She also played for the Civil Service Representative Second XI which played the other three services (Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and the Army) annually. By then Joyce was playing for Elmwood Ladies’ Hockey Club, affiliated to Surrey rather than to the Civil Service. She proposed that players outside the Civil Service be represented on the CSSC by an ‘unattached member’ – this was agreed, Joyce was appointed and her career in hockey administration began.

She became County Secretary for the Civil Service and later President until 2001, followed by an honorary position on the committee which she held for many more years.

Joyce Cole at Ramsgate Easter Hockey Festival, 1950.

The Civil Service clubs lost many of their members to stronger Surrey clubs over the years and the Civil Service County side also suffered from a similar drift of better players to other county sides in southern England, eventually giving up its status as a participant in the South County tournament. Meanwhile, through holding the position of secretary of Elmwood Ladies’ Hockey Club in Surrey, Joyce moved on to serve on the South Council and the All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA) Rules Committee – someone presumed that, as a civil servant, she would be good at drafting rules! This role earned her an associate life membership of the AEWHA.

Within her Department in the Civil Service, Joyce became a legend, organising many sports teams and events for her department and inter-departmentally within the London region. In 1980 Joyce was awarded the CSSC Merit Award, given to volunteers who “have shown highly meritorious service over a sustained period of time and made a significant impact in one or more areas.” She was honoured by being presented with this award by the Duchess of Gloucester at one of the Civil Service Special Events, which covered all Civil Service sports across the country and was held over a two-day period at Loughborough College. Joyce also gave a trophy – The Joyce Cole Cup – which was played for in an inter-departmental eleven-a-side tournament.

Joyce continued to organise hockey and other sports for her department and the region and was further honoured by the CSSC with the John Whittaker Fellowship award in 2016 for “having made a real difference to CSSC’s effectiveness through (her) persistent hard work, integrity and endeavour”.

Joyce carried on playing for many years – well into the 1970s where she was an icon of the past, known to most of the players in Surrey as the ‘older lady who stood in the goal wearing a striped blazer and very white pads’, which she assiduously whitened before every match.

Joyce Cole wearing her iconic striped goalkeeping blazer with its Elmwood Ladies’ Hockey Club cloth badge.

The blazer has a history of its own. When Joyce was selected for her school hockey team there was a tradition that members of the First XI were allowed to wear a blazer (members of the tennis team wore gloves). These were the days of rationing and her parents wouldn’t allow Joyce to use her coupons for the blazer. They felt she should keep them for clothes she would need when she started work. Joyce was not happy about this and went to her grandmother where, after much persistence, she managed to obtain sufficient coupons. However, when she went to the shop, she was told they didn’t have enough material – all the factories having gone over to making uniforms. But as she was quite small, they managed to find enough material to make her blazer. This she wore all throughout her hockey-playing career and it now resides in the collection of The Hockey Museum.

There are many people whose lives were touched by Joyce over such an extensive career in hockey – she will long be remembered fondly by all of us.

Evelyn Somerville