Woodley seeks hockey spot

Press, 6 August 1987, Page 44

Woodley seeks hockey spot

By

KEVIN TUTTY

lan Woodley, the Auckland and New Zealand hockey goalkeeper, leaves next Monday for the Netherlands where he will endeavour to win a place in one o' the world’s top club teams, Kampong.

Wooriley will have three weeks of training and trials with the club, based in Utrecht, before he knows whether he has broken into the premier team.

Kampong has built an impressive record in recent years. Last year it was the Dutch club champion, and it has won or drawn the last 18 international matches it has played against visiting teams.

Included in that list are Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand. The side is captained by Tom vant’ Hek, who is also the Dutch captain. Woodley has no guaran-

tee that he will be the first team goalkeeper and knows that it will be difficult to break into the side, even though the position has been left vacant by the retirement of the regular goalkeeper. Several New Zealanders had tried to win places in Dutch club teams in the last few years, but had been thwarted by a rule introduced by the Netherlands Hockey Federation which required players to be resident in the country for six months before they were eligible to play for a club.

The federation revised that rule this year and it now permits one overseas player in each club team. Woodley hopes to become that player in the Kampong team. Woodley first made an approach to Kampong at the World Cup in London last October, through vant’ Hek, and with an intro-

duction from New Zealand’s national coaching director, Pieter Jongejan. “I felt I needed to do something to further my development. I wanted to have a good series in Argentina (in March) before I made the decision to go. That happened, so I decided to make the move.

“Hockey will occupy a short space in my life. I have worked hard to get as far as I have and the next step is trying to play for a top club team in the Netherlands. “I can do it at the moment. I have no family commitments and New Zealand has no major tours coming up. I have spoken to Trevor Blake (the New Zealand coach) and the New Zealand Hockey Association, to make sure I won’t be jeopardising my chances of selection for New Zealand. I wouldn’t be going

if that was the case.”

The N.Z.H.A. has accepted an invitation to a tournament in Lucknow in January and Woodley said he would be available. He will be playing indoor hockey in the Netherlands at that time. It will not be known until October whether New Zealand has been accepted for the Olympic Games in Seoul next year, but Woodley will be back in time for the start of the 1988 season in April. He will miss the Post Bank national tournament in Whangarei later this month which he regrets. “It is the highlight of the season.”

But national tournaments are not new for Woodley, aged 24. He first played in one in 1978 at the age of 15 for South Canterbury, and has missed only once since — in 1981 when he had a broken leg.