Forty-four European officials came together in Breda to take in the next steps of their educational journey on the international stage.

In conjunction with the Push Trophy, the venue played host to the EuroHockey Institute’s latest Umpires for Nations, Umpires for Europe and Judges for Europe sessions.

For the umpires, this was their second seminar of the year, the first being a theoretical seminar held in Hamburg alongside the easter club tournament.

Throughout the weekend, the umpires had a fitness test, were appointed to games at the Push Trophy and had mentor meetings where they discussed their progress. 

 They worked in tandem with the Judges for Europe (J4E) course which had 14 judges from 12 countries; they were educated by Leon Rutten (NED) and Sabina Zampetti (ITA) via a classroom session. 

They then had the opportunity to sharpen their skills on the side of the pitch in conjunction with Michiel Christiaanse (NED) who was the tournament TD as well as working with Joyce Wijnhoven (BEL) as technical official and Tom Goode (IRL) as umpires manager.

EuroHockey Institute Coordinator Cameron Findler paid tribute to those who helped make it happen: “A huge thank you to the local organising committee of the Push Trophy, without whom this festival of hockey and learning would not be possible.

 “The five umpire mentors and two judge mentors are essential to the success and continued development of our EuroHockey officials, so a special thank you goes to them.”

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Maya Anita Frese (GER) is on the Umpire for Nations course and described the trip as “an amazing experience”.

“It was amazing for us umpires to  connect with each other, get to know other fun colleagues from all over Europe; discussing hockey from many new, different perspectives was a huge gain for me.

“I had a great time learning from many different Ums and having many highly experienced umpires around who I could ask any kind of question to.

“I feel like I met a bunch of new friends; I got to experience international hockey umpiring and it got me excited for more.”

She says the seminar helped her set a new goal towards a career in international umpiring with a new scope to learn more.

“I was very impressed the first question asked in the debrief was ‘what did you like about your umpiring?’ which, for me, was rather new. We are very used to criticising and finding errors, so I hardly ever thought about my strengths during a game. That actually did change my perspective quite a bit, also for my next games.

“I am absolutely grateful for this amazing experience in Breda. I think I can improve my level of umpiring with my Personal Development Plan provided by my mentor Gregory Maya-Perez, but also every UM who gave me a quick and short summary of what to adjust/improve after the match.

“And – this might be weird to say – reflecting on my game critically but positively had a huge impact on my mindset in approaching new games.”

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Umpires for Europe participant Sam Church (ENG) says: “Breda allowed me to meet a variety of umpires across Europe as well as receive top quality coaching from mentors from around Europe.

“The weekend provided an opportunity for practical development which followed on from the Easter seminar which was around preparing for games.”

Outlining how the weekend progressed, he said: “This started on Friday evening with a practical fitness test to allow us to gauge the levels required for international umpires. Saturday and Sunday provided opportunities to umpire top Dutch junior hockey.

“Focus on the preparation for the game was key as many of the people at Breda hadn’t umpired together before and also had different styles of management.

“It ensured people were on the same page through the umpires briefing and the pre match chat meant there were no surprises.

“After the games, we had a debrief from a mentor which provided feedback on both areas of strength but also areas of development.

“This was useful as there were points raised which I hadn’t had brought up before domestically and therefore it was a good learning curve and this provided areas to focus on when umpiring back home.

“The tournament also provided opportunities to network as this was one of my first events in Europe. I didn’t know many people; however by the end of the week I’d made friends from several different countries that I can stay in contact with and hopefully will umpire with at future tournaments.”

Find out more

** Click here to find out more about the EuroHockey Institute Officiating courses and programmes