Raphäel Adrien is among the latest graduates of EuroHockey’s Umpire Development Programme (UDP). The German umpire has been on a rapid rise in the past 12 months, moving up to the FIH High Potential Panel earlier this year and he spoke to EuroHockey about his life with the whistle.
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Adrien’s umpiring journey coincides almost directly with his hockey journey in general. Twelve years ago, he took up the sport as a 15-year-old at Wiesbaden DHC where they also ran an umpiring course.
And he admits he “developed faster than on the playing side” and people around the club “acknowledged I had a bit of talent for it” so he began to get support quite early on.
“I started hockey in the first place as I wasn’t really good enough at football anymore. There was like a summer holiday course in my hometown – my parents were working during the day so these courses were there for you to play something or do a computer course [to fill your day].
“I took hockey and I remember the first day talking to my mother and saying like ‘oh I’m not so sure if I really want to do that’. My mother said just give it a try… and just like that, I got hooked.
“I was quite late to it and sometimes I think what if I would have started earlier because I never played high level hockey.
“There’s many others umpires who started at a young age, they played high level, they know more of the game but I think I have a different kind of view on that because I always had the outside view.
“Like maybe I’m not the most tactical guy. I never had a high-end coaching on tactics and stuff but maybe it is another way to see the game.”
Getting vital early encouragement also paid dividends.
“Quite early, they saw something in me and they were like ‘we need to push this guy!’ I could name five or six people who supported me but there’s many more in the background who backed by talent.
“I had fun on the pitch and people were really nice. Having people actually believing in you helps a lot and so it made it more fun to do than playing at the weekend. It also gave me a chance to be involved in some ‘proper’ hockey – I could umpire in like the third German league or go play in the eighth division and not have a good game.
“So you start telling your coach, I can’t play this weekend as I have this game to umpire and it goes from there.”
Soon, he was getting into the realm of being earmarked for the EuroHockey umpiring courses, starting with Umpires for Europe (U4E).
“It is amazing to get so many young people from so many different countries together all with a shared passion for the sport but also to have all their different inputs into it.
“You have the mentors with U4E from so many different countries and so much knowledge over the years with Rob Ten Cate as the head, inspiring stuff.”
On the UDP, his mentors were Olympic umpires Fanneke Alkemade and Paco Vazquez.
“There’s so much you can learn from people like this and I can still hear advice from when I started U4E before Covid. There’s still stuff I have in my head from umpire managers, asking me ‘does this add value?’ They have so much to offer just soak everything up.”
Adrien made his FIH Pro League last summer before officiating at the EuroHockey qualifiers in Dublin and he is hoping to continue to pushing up the ladder having been included on a high potential panel.
“I’m on the second highest level now and it is amazing to do the games with people you see on TV, going to Olympics and World Cups.
“In terms of ambition, there’s a dream target, and it’s the Olympics. I don’t lie, there’s many umpires who say, one day I want to be there. It’s also my goal, but there’s so much stuff you can’t control at this high level.
“We have talked about this also in the UDP; there’s stuff you can control and there’s stuff you don’t control.
“If they give you chances, you should take them and show them that you’re there for a reason. So I’m just trying to get as much appointments as I can get and then show them that I deserve to be on that level.
“I am driven because it was quite fast [the rise] in the last year. I know that it’s not going to go on like this forever so I’m taking everything I can. Just soaking everything in.
“I want to thank my national association actually, really, for putting me in the U4E program from the beginning. And then for Eurohockey for selecting me for UDP and giving me the chance to develop as an umpire but also just as a human being personally in my everyday life.
“Through the amazing network EuroHockey has built, I’ve umpired in the Dutch Hoofdklasse through those connections. “There’s some of my closest friends in this programme that I can call every time I need something. This whole support network, everybody’s there for everyone.”
