History

Derek Holton

A speech made by Rogan Meadows on the very first Derek’s Day

The fact that many of my words will be a potted history of Adastral Hockey is not a mere coincidence as you will see.  My first memories are not of Derek, I didn’t know him as Derek. He was Gus.

Gus was Adastral, Adastral was Gus. They are first recorded together in 1956. I remember his house colours being maroon and white. From my earliest memories he organized the playing side of Adastral which comprised, from winter 1966, two mixed sides.

At that time Adastral was a sports club with hockey, soccer and cricket sections. Gus was goalkeeper, team and fixture secretary.

My very first memory of Adastral is playing in the Keith Minchinton Memorial match. I was a player for Scorpions at the time, pretty successful as a forward. I was very proud to be asked to play for the mixed county in this match in honour of Keith, a prime mover in both Adastral and mixed county hockey. I turned up to face “As” at Cowley Barracks ground to discover I was to play at right half. However I was told not to worry about marking their left wing as he was no threat, but to help stop Dave Robson coming through. Trouble was I had no idea who Dave Robson was – if they had said Robbie!

“As” left winger scored – it was John Timberlake. Mickie Boodell also scored for “As”. It was Sunday 18th February 1968 and the Adastral team was Gus in goal, Brian Hawtin, Neil Harris, Pam Hand, Dave Robson, Beryl Craig, Linda Waterman, Pat Camplin, Judy Bedford, Mick Boodell, and John Timberlake who was captain.

How do I know all this, because it is all recorded. Gus kept meticulous records from 1956 for 40 years. It is all there, and around the room today are snippets of the information and examples of his records.

I subsequently joined Adastral because they did not just play hockey, they socialized, and that is what I wanted.

In 1970 Oxford Hawks agreed to allow Adastral Hockey section use of their clubhouse on a Sunday. This really eased our socializing problems as we now had access to a bar as soon as matches finished – no longer did we have to kill time waiting for 7 o’clock Sunday opening! In fact we would just be getting nicely pissed when we realized it was opening time!

It was in 1971 that the hockey section broke away from Adastral Sports Club, and formed Adastral Hockey Club. I remember we were very grateful to Adastral Sports Club, at the time, for allowing us to retain the name Adastral which had become well known in the south of England.

The forming of North Oxford Sports Club in 1980 forced a sad parting of the ways between the Ladies and Mixed hockey sides. North Oxford Sports Club was formed in order to share this clubhouse. North Oxford Tennis Club and Oxford Hawks were two of the founding clubs, Etceteras Ladies Hockey who played here were a third. For Adastral mixed to be part of it we had to separate from the ladies, and this is what happened. However it was noticeable that the “As” ladies were the more prominent ladies in the bar and, subsequently, Oxford Hawks ladies was formed by amalgamating Adastral Ladies and Etceteras Ladies clubs.

And here we are today. Adastral has always been one of the pre-eminent clubs in Oxfordshire mixed and was the leader when it came to playing around the south.

And who was organizing all of this hockey? It was Gus.

Listen to the statistics:

• 1957-8 season – played 27 matches
• 1967-8 seasons – played 53
• 1971-72 this had risen to 77
• 1983-84 this had become 96 matches played

and from this time on the total matches, summer and winter combined, played by Adastral each year was always around the 100.

All fixtures organized by Gus, all teams organized by Gus and all the records kept by Gus.

Each AGM he would faithfully report the stats:

• Games played, won, drawn and lost
• Most appearances
• Leading goal scorers.
• And they are all in his record books.

And, as if this were not enough, he was very much at the heart of mixed county and mixed county under 21’s in particular.

Gus was proud of Adastral. He was keen to get people playing mixed hockey for Adastral. Too keen at times. We had to curb his enthusiasm when it got to the stage of finding ten others to make up the numbers when he had one Adastral player without a game!

He was proud of Adastral’s results and he was keen to get improved levels of player and opposition. You only have to look at some of the select teams he organized to play “As” for special occasions – talk about the “All Stars”!

So, as I said earlier, it is good to see so many here today to celebrate his memory and to share those memories.

I was going to say that it is impossible to say what hockey owes Gus

But this is inappropriate.

Gus never considered he was owed anything. He took pride and fulfillment from what he achieved, and what Adastral achieved.

And didn’t he achieve!

His forty years of recording and organising, just for Adastral Hockey, and just for games actually played (and some seasons up to 25% of games were cancelled owing to weather, but they still had to be organized)

Show two thousand three hundred matches organized and played.

And of the games played, Adastral won 54% of them, he would have been proud of that, and scored over five thousand five hundred goals, conceding three thousand seven hundred. They and the scorers (even down to own goals) are all there, recorded.

Including cancellations, around 2,500 matches organized by Gus:

that’s over twenty seven thousand, five hundred people organized onto a hockey pitch.

What memories he has given us.

Let’s celebrate by remembering and sharing those memories

Ladies and gentlemen,

more importantly – hockey players:

I give you Derek Holton – Gus.