John Litchfield, a Much Respected and Loved Colleague

It is with great sadness that we advise you that John Litchfield passed away on Monday night after a brave fight with cancer. He turned 85 last Friday.

John played all his hockey at Belper HC where, at one time or another he held office in just about every job imaginable, including 1st XI Captain, Treasurer, Secretary, Chairman and President. In short, he was Mr Belper and, despite his illness, was still watching matches at the club until earlier this year.

After he retired from playing, John took up umpiring, joining East Midlands Hockey Umpires Association, where he quickly established a reputation as a good, fair and popular umpire and before long was promoted to Midlands Counties Umpires Association where, again, his progress to the top panel was swift.

Notwithstanding his ongoing commitments to Belper, John also became involved with committee work at the Umpire Associations, serving at various times as Chief Coach and then President of EMHUA. With MCHUA, he served on the Selection Committee for many years and was President from 1998-2000, where he was instrumental in the merger of the Men’s and Women’s Counties Associations to become Midlands Region Hockey Umpiring Association at the same time as the Men’s and Women’s National Associations merged to become England Hockey. Upon the creation of the combined Umpiring Association, John was elected as its inaugural President for the season 2000/2001.

Upon retiring from umpiring, around the turn of the century, John turned his attention to Umpire Development, serving as Secretary to MRHUA Coaching Committee from 2001-2013. He was responsible for all coaching activities and organising many development seminars and events for the umpires. He produced many guidance notes on various aspects of the game, many of which are still relevant for the umpires of today.

Not content with his work in the Midlands, John decided to work towards his L3 Umpire Coach Award in the recently formed National Panel Umpiring Association (NPUA). He was fully committed to this and despite being unsuccessful on his first practical assessment he persevered and in due course was successful in his second assessment becoming the first L3 Umpire Coach who had had not been a National Umpire – a huge achievement at that time. Unsurprisingly, John became a highly respected Umpire Coach within NPUA, not only coaching umpires at the top level but getting involved in the production of coaching material and, for several years, taking on the responsibility for appointing umpire coaches to matches. A measure of how much his coaching was appreciated was, some years ago, the winning of the Umpire Support of the Year Award at the NPUA Annual Dinner and then, a few years later receiving the NPUA Lifetime Achievement Award.

After stepping down from NPUA, John continued his involvement with Midlands, taking coaching appointments up to the end of 2024/25 season.

We have lost a much respected and loved colleague and friend and our thoughts are with his family at this sad time. Funeral arrangements will be advised in due course.

Colin Jones
Midlands Hockey Officiating

Photo: John receiving his NPUA Umpire support award. (Credit NPUA)