Jo Nightingale

England Hockey is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Jo Nightingale, known to many as Jo 90.

Jo was a passionate coach who obtained her level 4 coaching award in 1997, very few people reached this prestigious level of coaching.

Jo was a coach, and player for many years at various clubs across the Midlands and celebrated success with Sutton Coldfield ladies, Aldridge ladies, Lichfield men and Barford Tigers men to name a few.

In addition to this, Jo's coaching career included being assistant coach to England U18 on the tour of South Africa in 1998, and head coach for the Welsh Senior Ladies team in 2010.

She made a huge contribution to Coach Education and development in her roles as Head Tutor for Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 coach candidates as well as becoming an Internal Verifier.

Jo was an excellent coach developer and trainer of tutors and assessors for England Hockey, known at the time as one of the top coach educators in the Country.  Jo was among the few female coaches respected to deliver groundbreaking coach education programmes when they were first introduced.

All who knew and worked with Jo found her to be passionate, knowledgeable, inspirational, motivational and selfless in her dedication to those who were fortunate to be coached by her. 

Anne Baker (former England Hockey Coach Development Manager) has said, “It was a pleasure to work with Jo in coach education, she was enthusiastic, energetic and very knowledgeable, always questioning and eager to learn more from some of the International performance coaches who contributed to the level 3 courses.”

Jo was a true legend in the hockey family and she will be sorely missed. 

England Hockey would like to add their sincere condolences to all who knew Jo.