Masters International Results & History

An Australian Women’s Veterans 35+ team was first selected in 1996 to participate in the Pac Rim Tournament in Hong Kong, which, until this time, had been a men’s competition.

In 1997 the same team went to Seoul and in 1998 a team was selected to go to a Veterans World Cup Tournament in Utrecht (Netherlands) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for the Pac Rim.

Since then teams have competed at this tournament which is now referred to as the International Masters Tournament (IMHT) – 1999 in Brunei, 2001 in Singapore, 2003 in Auckland, 2004 in Kuala Lumpur, 2005 in Melbourne and 2007 in Birmingham. The tournament still remains small in relation to the number of women’s teams participating.

Whilst the participation of women’s teams was limited in Birmingham in 2007, it was positive that a draft constitution of the International Masters Hockey Council was endorsed and presented to FIH with the aim of establishing recognition of Veterans at an international level.

In 2008 at the Australian Championships in Brisbane, thre teams (35’s, 40’s, 45’s) were selected to attend the IMHT in Hong Kong in 2009. Unfortunately the women’s division was unable to run due to lack of participants and cost.

In July 2010, a 45’s Australian Women’s Team competed at the Lady Masters Champions Trophy held in conjunction with the FIH Women’s Champions Trophy in Nottingham, England. This was a key development in fostering tournaments with Women’s Veterans teams from the UK, Europe and South Africa.

In 2011 Australia hosted an International Invitational Tournament on the Gold Coast with an England team participating in the Over 40’s division and New Zealand in 35’s, 40’s, 45’s 50’s and 55’s age groups.

Australian Masters teams toured Fiji in April 2012 for a development and promotion tour. A Women’s Over 45’s and Men’s Over 35’s team played matches against the Fiji Masters and High Performance Unit teams at the National Hockey Centre in Suva. The contingent showed their support of junior hockey development with donations of much needed hockey equipment to the Fiji Hockey Federation.

The inaugural Masters World Cup was held in Canterbury, England in 2012 with Australian women competing in the 40’s and 50’s age divisions.

In 2013 the Australian 40’s and 50’s teams accepted an invitation to attend the European Masters Cup in Belfast, Northern Ireland and this event was a further expansion of our participation and exposure of women’s masters hockey in the European area.

In 2014 the women’s 45’s team again travelled to Fiji for a development and promotion tour and the 35’s and 55’s teams toured to England for a series of matches against England, Wales and Scotland. The 40’s, 50’s and 60’s women’s teams competed at the 2014 FIH Masters World Cup in Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

In 2016 the FIH Masters World Cup was held in Canberra. Australian women’s teams competed in the 40’s, 45’s, 50’s, 55’s and 60’s age divisions. To enable a viable competition for all teams, Australian ‘Wattles’ teams competed in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s age divisions.

An Australian Women’s 35’s team also competed at the Hawkes Bay Affiliates Tournament in New Zealand in 2016.

The 2018 Masters World Cup was held in Terrassa, Spain in July with eight Australian Women’s teams competing (35’s, 40’s, 45’s, 50’s, 55’s, 60’s, 65’s and Wattles 65’s).

Sue Briggs and Peri Buckley hold positions on the International Masters Hockey Association and Sue is also the IMHA representative to FIH.

Australian committee representatives continue to establish contacts and networks with fellow masters women overseas to develop competitions and tournaments.

The Women’s Masters Committee’s focus is to foster that vision and dreams established in 1996 by a dedicated group of veteran hockey volunteers and provide current and future players with the proud opportunity to represent their country.

The most recent World Cups were held in 2018. Barcelona hosted the Grand Masters Hockey World Cup while Terrassa hosted the IMHA Masters World Cup.

The Grand Masters World Cup (all grades from Over 60s to Over 75s) was held from 20-30 June. The Men contested four grades including +60s, +65s, +70s and +75s, while the women contested +60s and +65s. The World Cup was played at Real Club de Polo de Barcelona. More information

Results
The 60s was won by the Netherlands, with Australia finishing 5th following a 3-1 win over Scotland in their final match. They played seven games for 6 wins and 1 loss, scored 30 goals for and only 3 against. Graham Miller was the highest goal scorer with six, which saw him tie for 5th highest scorer in the 60s competition. Robert Lifmann from the Netherlands was the leading scorer with 12 goals. Interesting fact – Germany only won 3 games to finish 3rd.

The 65s was won by England after defeating Australia 4-1 in the Grand Final. The Australian 65s played six games for four wins, a draw and the GF loss, 18 goals for and 7 against. Highest goal scorers were captain Bruce Snape and Noel French with three. Tim Smith from England was the highest scorer with 8 goals. Coach Peter Sweeney said his team put in an awesome effort to get to where they did.

70s. After scoring an amazing 34 goals for the tournament it was heartbreak when the Australians went down to England in the Grand Final. Scores were level 2-2 at full time but the shootouts went in favour of England 2-0. Australia played 7 games for 6 wins with Tony Rodgers and Simon Williams both netting 8 goals for the tournament and being the leading goal scorers in the competition.

75s. Norman May’s favourite team came away with Gold. Having to wait for the very last game of the round robin format and see England beat the Netherlands to allow the Australian team to retain its place at the top of the ladder and take home the trophy. They played 6 games for 4 wins, a draw and a loss, scored 12 goals with Ian Wright leading with three. A shout-out to the Southern Cross players who won both the 60s & 75s Tournament Trophy competitions.

The IMHA Masters World Cup is the field hockey world cup for master national teams from all over the world. The competition included both men and women teams and was divided into the following categories: +35, +40, +45, +50, +55.

The IMHA Masters World Cup takes place every two years and has been promoted since 2012 by the International Master Hockey Association (IMHA) and recognized worldwide by the International Hockey Federation (FIH).

Club Egara in Terrassa hosted the 4th edition of the IMHA Masters World Cup. Canterbury (2012), Rotterdam (2014) and Canberra (2016) have hosted previous editions.

Results from Terrassa
In the women’s, the Australian Over 35s won the silver medal, going down to England 1-0 in the Grand Final. Leading goal scorers were Belinda Cameron and Sharon Clark with three each.

The 40s also won the silver medal losing to Argentina 2-1 with Nan Latta scoring four goals for the week.

The 45s lost the bronze to Russia in a shoot-out to finish 4th.

The 50s played Ireland for gold but lost 1-0 to take the silver medal, as did the 55s who were tied 1-1 with England at the end of their Grand Final but lost the shoot-out 3-0.

Australia’s 60s teams played each other for the bronze with the 60s beating the Wattles 2-1 in the shootouts after being tied 1-1 at full time.

In the men’s competition, Australia’s Over 35s are the world champions after beating England 1-0 in the Grand Final. Australian players took out four of the top six goal scoring spots with Troy Sutherland netting 10 over the championship.

Australia’s 40s played good hockey but shoot-outs got the better of them. They defeated South Africa 11-0 to finish 7th.

Australia’s 45s also came undone on shoot-outs, losing to Ireland to finish 6th.

The 50s join the 35s as champions after defeating the Netherlands 2-1 in the Final. The team only conceded two goals in the tournament.

The 55s did not lose a match in regulation time, finishing 5th after rolling Malaysia 4-2 in their final match.

In 1997, recognising the need for an international competition for Australian Women’s Veterans teams, Jeanette Slade OAM and Caroline Wood representing the then Women’s Hockey Australia Association, were instrumental in negotiations with New Zealand in establishing an event between the two countries.

The Trans-Tasman Masters Challenge was established as a bi-annual 3-test series and began in May 2000. The first event was held in Auckland at North Harbour with six teams, consisting of a women’s team from each nation competing in 35’s, 40’s and 45’s age groups.

In Brisbane in 2002 the event expanded to 12 teams with the inclusion of 50’s Women and 45’s and 55’s Men’s age groups.

In 2004 the Challenge continued with 12 teams competing in Wellington. In 2006 in Hobart there was further expansion to 16 teams with the inclusion of a Men’s 40’s and 50’s division. In 2008 in Hamilton the competition remained with 16 teams across the eight age divisions and in 2010 in Newcastle a Women’s 55’s division was included with a total of 18 teams contesting the event.

After the 2010 challenge in Newcastle the scheduling of the event was changed to the ‘odd year’ sequence to avoid clashes with potential IMHA international tournaments.

In 2013 the Trans-Tasman Challenge returned to North Harbour in Auckland with the inclusion of a Men’s 60’s division bringing 20 teams into the challenge.

The Women’s 60’s age group played an invitational tri series that was run in conjunction with the Trans Tasman event. The same rules applied however results were not included in the overall country championship.

At the conclusion of the 2013 event it was agreed by HA and NZ Masters Councils that the 60’s women would be fully included in the 2015 challenge.

The 2015 Challenge was held in Melbourne from 5-9 May with a further expansion of the event to 26 teams with the inclusion of Women’s 60’s and Men’s 35’s and 65’s.

Whangarei New Zealand was the venue for the 2017 Challenge in May, again with 26 teams – Women’s 35s-60s and Men’s 35s-65s.

The 2019 Trans Tasman was hosted on the Gold Coast in Queensland with the competition expanded to 28 teams with the introduction of Women’s 65’s.