Travellers Hockey Club during their 50th anniversary celebrations in Oxford in 2010.
Tony Henman is second from right in the back row. Photograph courtesy of Cyril Flajsner.
12.04.1940 – 03.05.2024
Anthony John Shirley Henman, known as Tony, an Oxford solicitor and all-round amateur sportsman, died on Friday 3 May. He was a hockey player for Hampstead HC, for the Travellers Sunday side and latterly the England masters competing across several age groups.
Hockey with Hampstead Hockey Club
It would stretch credulity to suggest that Tony Henman’s hockey career was shaped by his brief playing career with Hampstead Hockey Club. He was admitted as a member of the club on 3 January 1963.
He was not present at the club’s AGM that followed on 5 April 1963. That meeting heard that while the overall playing record of the club in that season had been the most successful since 1955-56, the 1st XI had won five and lost six of its matches, drawing on three occasions. Hampstead was not a particularly fashionable hockey club at the time, though Neil Livingstone had captained Scotland and Jim Deegan had played for England that season. The assumption is that Tony Henman joined because of its proximity to his accommodation at the time, reputedly shared with Mick Jagger.
Tony Henman’s first recorded appearance was in one of the four practice games against Hendon on 27 September 1964, playing as a centre forward that led to his selection for the 2nd XI in the first three matches in October, but at inside right.
He was selected for the 1st XI for the game against Cheam at left wing on 25 Ocotber 1964 that ended in a 1-2 loss and against Maidenhead a week later also resulting in a loss, 0-2. On 1 November 1955, he captained the Sunday side, the Spaniards (containing a mixture of players throughout the club) on its usual trip to Middleton on Sea. The 1st XI suffered more defeats and Steve Dunsford the captain resigned but for unconnected reasons. Tony was now selected at centre forward and a win was achieved against Royal Engineers on 13 December 1984. At the start of the new year the team had won two games but lost nine, with two draws. Success against the leading London teams proved elusive but Tony was on hand in a 5-0 win against Lensbury on 7 February 1965. That same month, Tony played at inside left and his brother Richard at right wing against Blackheath and later against Mid Surrey, the latter ending in a 3-2 win.
For the following season (1965-66), Tony applied to be an occasional member of the club. He had a reputation for pace on the wing and frequently failing to see where the umpire was standing that led to collisions, such was his undivided concentration on the game.
Touring Hockey with Travellers and England Masters
In much later years, Tony toured frequently with the Travellers, a team that began in 1934 as Beckenham Wanderers, formed with prime idea of touring abroad, especially at Easter and sometimes at Whitsun (except during the Second World War). The Travellers also played on Sundays in winter months but found that fixtures were becoming fewer. Nonetheless they were continued by clubs of similar backgrounds, such as the Bacchanalians, Tramps and Ghosts.
He also took part in the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur in 2002 as a member of the England team when a tournament, the first of its kind, was convened for the over 65 age group. This grew to become the Grand Masters competition played alongside the World Cup and now at several age groups.
Professional and Sporting Interests
Tony later returned to Hampstead & Westminster HC regularly for a series of annual memorial matches held at Paddington Recreation Ground in early September initially to commemorate the lives of four members who died far earlier than ought to be the case. The Club’s Veterans team took on a Legends XI, for which Tony added vigorous running and irrepressible energy.
Some of the Legends XI instructed Tony as their solicitor given that he was then developing the practice that later took his name and that of his brother Richard, based in Oxford. Tony had spent time at City lawyers Hextall Erskine, which coincided with his membership of Hampstead HC. In 1965 he left there and joined his father’s practice, Henman Ballard in Woodstock, northwest of Oxford that developed a specialism in personal injury cases, especially with an insurance element to them. On his father’s retirement, Tony and Richard moved the practice to Oxford, where it grew considerably. It merged with the national legal practice Freeth Cartwright in 2012.
Tony’s professional life was intertwined with his sporting interests and he was able to represent Oxfordshire at tennis, squash, cricket and hockey, having also played amateur football for Headington United (that later became Oxford United). He encouraged his children to take up a wide range of sports, using the garden of the family house in Weston in the Green, north of Oxford, for this purpose. It was here that his son, Tim, quickly developed an aptitude for tennis and was soon playing first string for Oxfordshire, alongside his father, then aged 40, as third string. Once Tim came to prominence on the world tennis stage, Tony and Jane Henman were frequently under the spotlight in their support. Here Tony was recognised as seemingly able to suppress any emotion at the state of play and demonstrate considerable composure and restraint. This disguised his own completive instincts seen particular in his hockey – and his loathing of losing.
