This year (2023), there will be over 30 Great Britain honours cap presentation events, not just around the country but around the world. Amazingly, the project has now passed 350 caps produced and presented (out of 581 GB men and women) and we will be beyond 400 by the year end! We anticipate that there will be over 100 GB players or their families that we may never find, mainly because the men’s teams go back over a century to 1920.
Cambridge City Hockey Club presentation, 15 May 2023
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From left to right: Mark Brookes (CCHC Chairman); Diane Wilman, Nick Thompson, Christopher Robinson, Photographs courtesy of Simon Webb Photography. |
The latest presentation took place at the magnificent Cambridge City Hockey Club (CCHC) with its three artificial pitches and clubhouse. The event was triggered by the presentation of David Wilman’s cap to his widow Diane. David was a long-time and much respected member of the Club. He played in three Olympic Games – in Rome 1960, Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968 – earning a total of 31 GB caps over nine years, which was exceptional in those days!
Being in Cambridge, our most easterly presentation venue, we were joined by Christopher Robinson, the nephew of Anthony (Tony) Robinson who played in the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952 winning a bronze medal, and in Melbourne 1956. International matches were much less frequent in those days: Tony totalled 17 GB appearances across the two Olympiads.
It has proved challenging to trace the families of the earlier players and in Tony’s case we have only located six out of 34 of his GB contemporaries. Consequently, the Cambridge presentations were a great joy for The Hockey Museum (THM) as well as for the recipients.
Also at this very special event, former CCHC First XI player Nick Thompson was presented with his cap – 67 caps accrued between 1989 and 1996 including the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games – but sadly his wife Jo (nee Ellis), also a GB hockey player, was unable to join us.
We are grateful to CCHC for their hospitality and thank them for embracing the historical achievements of its past players. The Club now boats six GB internationals and is going to mount a display to celebrate this feat.
Cambridge City HC’s write up of the event | cambridgecityhc.org
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Left: Diane Wilman (widow of David Wilman) and Nick Thompson with their GB honours caps. Photographs courtesy of Simon Webb Photography. |
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Looking ahead to England
The families of Tony Robinson and David Wilman will in due course receive their England honours caps, but with over 2,000 England players reaching back to the late 19th century, compiling this definitive dataset and then finding the players or descendants is and will be a much bigger job.
If you are interested in getting involved with THM’s England statistics research project, please get in touch.
