AS Nelson Bay Hockey prepares for its 33rd seasonthis year, the club has honoured its founding member and long-term treasurer who took the coveted Port Stephens Sports Citizen of the Year award on Australia Day.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Vince Northwood is known as "Mr Hockey" in Port Stephens, having established the club in 1982 with a handful of players and helping develop it into a 160-strong member organisation.
"We started with a few juniors playing out of Tomaree on a Wednesday afternoon ... today we have around 100 junior and another 60 seniors playing at our new fields at Salamander on a Saturday," Northwood said.
"We also have a Wednesday twilight summer mixed competition starting this week and we always welcome new players to the fold."
Northwood, 70, first picked up a hockey stick at age 25 and has been involved with Newcastle and Port Stephens since 1979. He played first grade for the Hawks and Tigers clubs and played until a few years ago.
Northwood's long-term commitment to Port Stephens hockey has ensured the club's continued growth with members ranging in age from four to 64. Another long-term committee member, Lindsay Brown, described Northwood as being "always supportive, always thoughtful, well-considered and measured in what he has to say".
"A lot of the old crew fell away from hockey when their own kids grew up and moved away from our club, Northwood stayed on."
Northwood still attends every competition week and is always the first to arrive and the last to leave, helping set up the fields as well as train the young and not so young members. In 2013, with Northwood as the guiding hand, the club entered its junior teams in the NSW carnival for the first time in its history and they came away as Div 4 joint NSW U13 boys champions, with Dubbo.
