We are delighted to share that our Head of Co-Curricular and long-standing member of staff Roger Wall has been awarded a Gold Medal as a member of the winning Over-60s England Hockey Masters at the World Cup tournament hosted in Auckland this November.

Roger is now in his twelfth year of playing in the England Hockey Masters team. He started playing for the England side when he turned 50, before which he wasn’t aware of the series’ existence. Masters Hockey in England is well represented, it runs across a wide range of age groups starting at over 30s and extending to over 70s. A World Cup is held every two years, a European Championships in between those and then a Home Nations every year.

Since joining the England Masters side Roger has played in Rotterdam in 2012 with the England over 50s where they unfortunately lost in the final to Germany, 1:0. Subsequently they played in a number of European Championships, winning some and losing a couple. In 2014 he went to Canberra winning gold, as well as the European Championship in Tilburg, Holland the year after, followed by another world championship in Barcelona in 2018. Then COVID hit and no events took place for three years. Roger captained England over 50s when the series resumed in 2022 in Cape Town, the team reaching the final but unfortunately losing 2:0 to Holland. Roger thought this would be his finale but his teammates fortunately persuaded him otherwise.

The World Cup tournament in Auckland was well represented with 16 nations present, most entering every category from over 40s to 65. In the final ‘edge of seat match’ England faced their familiar rivals the Netherlands. The match was very tight, England led 2-1 for much of the game but Netherlands equalised at the death. Fortunately, the team shook off this disappointment to win the shootout with only one goal getting past the England keeper.

‘I think the purists would probably say that he has a bunch of old men who can still just about run around and play some hockey and that's fine but the World Masters Hockey programme is well represented’

In terms of his ‘proper’ hockey career, Roger started playing whilst at Durham University. From there he went to Taunton and played for Taunton Vale and that's when the National League started in 1988. He played National League Division Two for Taunton and then moved to Reading Hockey Club when he moved to Bradfield in 1991 and played National League Hockey for Guildford from 91 through to 98, initially in Division Two and then Division One, when he politely points out that there were only two divisions of the National League.

The high point of this career was in 1996 when he played in the European Championship for Guildford, beating a German side called Harvester in the 3rd place playoff and winning bronze. At this point Roger was also in his second year as Housemaster of D House and chose to let Housemastering and College Hockey tours take priority, hence why it is so sweet to be able to return to winning form at this later stage.

Roger is very grateful to the Headmaster for allowing him the time off to play and we are proud that he used that time so well.

And the next step? Roger will again play for the over 60s in the European Championships hosted in Nottingham in 2025. We wish him and the rest of the England over 60s team the very best of luck.