Monica Pickersgill awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by England Hockey

Today, Monica Pickersgill was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding contribution to hockey in England by Mike Stoddard, England Hockey President.

Monica (Mon) was one of the most influential and significant figures in bringing the men’s and women’s hockey associations together as a joint association in 1997 and led the new organisation, the English Hockey Association as it was known, as its first President for a full three-year term.

It was her work with school hockey that first led Mon into the field of hockey administration. In the mid-1950s she became heavily involved in both junior county and junior regional hockey, establishing the first ever Regional School Girls’ Association in England for the North, which she went onto Chair. She was a senior county selector and Secretary of the Yorkshire Women’s Hockey Association. This was shortly followed by her elevation to become Chair of the North Women’s Hockey Association in 1989.

Her leadership skills were noticed through the Executive Committee and in 1992 she was elected as the 15^th and final President of the All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA). Mon’s mandate was to deliver the Centenary celebrations in 1995 and alongside this, steer the AEWHA towards a new joint association with The (men’s) Hockey Association.

On the five-year journey to a new joint association, Mon gained the respect and trust of the joint working party and was selected as the first President of the new English Hockey Association in 1997. Her work did not stop there however and, as with any new company and member organisation, the early formative years were intense and required strong and firm leadership.

Mon was instrumental in hockey’s strive forward from an amateur to professional sport. She identified the only way to become better at anything was to spend time working on it. The answer to this dilemma lay within the difference between amateurs and professionals. The recognition of the difference in achievement that this identified, helped lay the foundation for success in our sport at an international level.

England Hockey’s ambition for both the international men’s and women’s teams to be consistently in the top three in the world is a more achievable and realistic target thanks to her foresight, influence, and hard work.

You can hear more about Mon’s achievements in The Hockey Museum’s Oral History Interview here