Joanne Pinner (née Hunter), known as Jo, was recently re-selected by England for the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Pro League fixtures currently taking place in India. Her return to the international hockey fold follows a three-year gap during which she gave birth to her son Josh.

Jo was among the first to benefit from UK Sport’s comprehensive pregnancy guidelines for elite athletes, released in 2021. Having given birth to Josh in April 2023, Jo was back in training in September of that year! A fantastic, determined achievement.

Jo Pinner in action for Great Britain during the FIH Pro League in 2019.
Copyright: Ady Kerry / World Sports Pics, courtesy of England Hockey.

However, she is not the first hockey mum to have made it back into international selection. During the 1970s, two English mothers – Kathleen Malcom (née Cook) and Sheila Wooldridge (née Stirk) – made similar returns, albeit in a very different hockey era. At a time when the arrival of children usually signalled the end of most women’s ambitions to play any sort of competitive sport, these two women made light of a return to the elite level.

The England women’s team of 1974. Kathy Malcom is standing furthest right.

Kathleen Malcom

Kathleen, known as Kathy, came from a farming background and was well versed in regular physical activity from a young age. She played for East Gloucester Hockey Club, Gloucestershire and the West before first coming to the notice of the England selectors in 1964. She became a regular England defender in 1967 and went on to gain 54 caps before her retirement in 1973. Some of her early preparations for playing a Wembley international were captured on film (below). The first five minutes relates to Kathy and her England teammates and the match they played at Wembley in 1967.

Kathy’s first child, Peter, was born in July 1972, but she only missed one hockey season and was back playing for England in 1973. Her second child, Belinda, was born the following year and Belinda thinks that this probably put paid to her mother’s top level playing career. She remembers one tabloid newspaper headline in 1973 that read “Housewife on the Run” and recalls how her mother never made much of her efforts to get fit for hockey, just saying that working on the farm and running round after Peter kept her fit.

The England women’s team of 1975. Sheila Wooldridge is seated, second from right.

Sheila Wooldridge

Sheila played her hockey for Olton and Wallingford Hockey Clubs and Warwickshire County. Amazingly for such an accomplished player, she didn’t get selected for the England team until she was in her 30s. Not only that, by then (in 1972) she was already a mother with a six-month-old baby, Lucy. Sheila went on to have a second daughter, Emily and returned for a second time to play in the England team that won the 1975 International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) World Championship. Some achievement!

An article from the Daily Express in 1972 about Sheila Wooldridge and her daughter Lucy.

Sheila wrote an article in Hockey Field magazine about how to train to obtain international hockey fitness. Much of the text would be familiar to us, but the extracts below reveal training methods so unique to Sheila.

Extract from Hockey Field article written by Sheila Wooldridge, published 15 January 1977

“‘Lucy, get Emily the pot will you?’

 

“‘Sorry Mum, I can’t: I’m doing my training!’

 

“I popped my head around the door to see her running across the bedroom from one wardrobe to the other making the most awful heavy breathing noises. When she added a wipe of the brow, and her pace slowed to an agonising walk with an eventual ‘lay out’ on the sheepskin rug it was painfully obvious who she was emulating. Emily followed suit but found the rug more difficult to negotiate. The whole appalling scene reminded me of the summer of 1975 and the hours of running that had been done ahead of the 1975 World Cup – Val Robinson running the miles around the country lanes of Hertfordshire; Marie Birtwistle running along the beach at Blackpool; Anita White training with her Bishop Otter students; myself dashing through the park behind a pushchair and avoiding the looks of other mothers gracefully walking their prams.

 

“My training for this IFWHA Tournament usually had to be fitted around Emily’s morning sleep and meeting Lucy from the playground. If Lucy slept, the training session went according to plan; if she didn’t, my jog/sprints were done pushing her in the pushchair up and down the side of a pitch – she loved it; I hated it – but it’s a wonderful feeling in a game running without a heavy weight to push in front of you.

 

“This season my training has been different again. Who wants to look after kids with flu, chicken pox, throat infections etc! So, with Camberwick Green playing merrily in the background and two spotty children sitting square eyed with an eggcup each full of sultanas, the mother trains in the house and around the garden.”

 

Hockey Field, 1977.

Sheila went on to be awarded at least 31 caps over a 5-year international playing career and will be remembered as an elegant, courageous and very level-headed member of any team she played in, much loved by all her teammates.

Changing times

Kathy and Sheila were certainly determined women to be able to manage motherhood, homelife, work and fitness to get back to playing international hockey.

Today’s elite sport environment has come a long way since the 1970s and the importance of managing and supporting players when coming back to fitness following pregnancy and motherhood is now recognised. Jo Pinner is part of a growing group of women who have had support in their return to elite sport after giving birth. This includes footballers Alex Morgan and Melanie Leupolz, and Olympic gold medallists Laura Kenny, Helen Glover and Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Jo Pinner in action for England during the EuroHockey Nations Championship in 2017.
Copyright: Frank Uijlenbroek / World Sports Pics, courtesy of England Hockey.

Jo talks about the challenges of her return to the England Squad in an England Hockey interview (below) and in an article from the Independent newspaper in 2023.

All three women have demonstrated tremendous courage and determination in getting back onto the international stage. Following the achievements of Jo’s predecessors in their second England careers, we wish her every success in her Pro League matches, with hopefully many more caps to follow.

Jo Pinner: Pregnancy guidance and research is absolutely critical for athletes | The Independent