Player banned

Press, 29 July 1976, Page 30

Player banned

An R.N.Z.A.F. third-grade hockey player, P. Blake, has been banned for the rest of the season (until November 30) for striking an umpire. The ban was imposed by the Canterbury Hockey Association’s management committee after a recommendation from its judicial committee.

The ban applies anywhere in New Zealand and will include any Services tournaments. The committee recommended that if Blake should appear again on a similar complaint, he be banned for life. The incident occurred in a match between R.N.Z.A.F. and Woolston Working Men’s Club on July 10. Blake admitted that he struck the umpire, Mr R. Lawry, but told the judicial committee in explanation'

that events during the mate! were such that he felt an in cident was inevitable. Blake was ordered from the field after asking the umpire to check a player who was lying on the ground. Blake said he could not see the reasoning ir being sent off for asking the umpire to check the player, and so he struck Mr Lawry. The chairman of the C.H.A. management com mittee (Mr C, W. Walklin) said the case was lamentable, but there were mitigating circumstances.

“The umpire did admit that he passed the comment that the player on the ground was doing ‘a Hollywood’.

"To the umpire’s credit, he said that the incident was spontaneous, minor in nature, and that he may have helped to provoke it,”