This is potentially a very subjective claim but can anyone put forward a stronger case than this one for Stanley Howard Shoveller (1881-1959)?
To be the best amongst one’s contemporaries is perhaps the first requirement for this accolade. There cannot be much doubt about that. Shoveller played for his school 1st XI – what is now Kingston Grammar School – from the age of 14 and was a prolific goal scorer. He was playing for Hampstead Hockey Club before he left school and for Middlesex the year after leaving school. He first played for England three years later (1902) at the age of 21, which was very young in those days. In the following 19 years he played 35 times for England. He also fought in WW1, rising to the rank of Captain and being awarded a Military Cross.
His international career spanned two Olympic Games, London and Antwerp, winning gold medals in both. That in itself is an achievement unlikely to be equalled again by a British player. His official England record shows that he scored 79 goals in 35 appearances, including 17 hat tricks. That is an average of more than 2 goals per match. It is possible that this tally could be posthumously increased as ‘Shove’ as he was affectionately known, captained the England team that played in an international tournament in Hamburg in 1912 as a substitute for there being no hockey at the Stockholm Olympic Games. At this event he scored four times against Germany and three against Austria but at present these two matches do not appear in the England records.
To make Shoveller’s record even more remarkable, he did not play in 23 England matches because his work as a stockbroker did not give him the freedom to do so. What an amazing record it might have been had he played in all the 60 matches of his era. No wonder he was called the W G Grace of his time and therefore must qualify him to be the greatest English hockey player ever – unless you know different?
