It all started with Rowena Smith who was Hong Kong born and a very good hockey player. There were a couple of aspects which contributed to the idea of setting up a Valley women’s hockey team. The first division (today’s premier division) had lost a few teams - they were three teams short and the level of competition wasn’t very good so Rowena thought it would be good to have a new team

The other attraction may have been a chance meeting in the HKFC bar with an attractive member of the Valley Rugby team, but I’m not allowed to quote Brenda on that aspect! Men’s rugby was all there was at Valley at the time and Rowena hatched a plan with them that there should also be women’s hockey. “There were four of us (from HKFC A) Rowena, Anne Hughes, Anne Tait and myself who were all good friends, and then some other players from HKFC that got roped in, like Dawn Olsen, Doreen Kidner and Maggie Ross from KCC. Rowena went round and signed up players from all over the place!”

Not that it was a factor at the time, but Brenda also mentioned that in those days you could be a Lady Subscriber at HKFC, but if you got married, you had to leave! “Our first match was against HKFC A at King’s Park and, although there was no real animosity, HKFC turned up with bus-loads of supporters. We drew 1-1and what we didn’t have in talent, we definitely made up for in spirit! Despite struggling to get 11 players every week, we managed quite well and stayed in the top division for about three years. Although players moved on, other players joined and we maintained a reasonable team but then the HKHA changed the structure of the league and Valley were in the second division, so the better players moved back to clubs with first division teams, making it difficult to get back up. It was quite a long time before we got a second team. It it was hard to recruit players and quite a lot of teams were struggling. Only KCC, HKFC and Gremlins really had consistently strong teams at that time.”

The conversation moved on to player turn-over and the problems that can cause with team consistency. “HKFC, HKCC and KCC A all have club memberships, so once someone joins, they have that commitment and are unlikely to go to Valley. Understandable, but Valley has always been a great team for people who just rock up in Hong Kong and want to play. It has always been a very sociable club and doesn’t have expensive membership fees, so you can just get off the plane and there you are.”

When asked if there was any opposition within Valley to the setting up of the women’s hockey section, Brenda answered “from my understanding it was welcomed with open arms, because they thought it would be great to have a women’s team and there was no women’s rugby and no netball, and just one men’s rugby team. The section expanded very quickly though, after that. We really had to fight to get 11 on the pitch each week but we stuck in there, and were eventually promoted back up to the first division again"

Like many other Valley players, Brenda has a long history of contribution to the administration of her sport in Hong Kong, first serving on the HKHAWS as ‘International Liaison’ in 1983. “I was pregnant, so decided I might as well volunteer to do something while not playing. This coincided with the first time that the China hockey squad were allowed out of China to compete so they came to play two matches against the Hong Kong team as a warm-up, with both the matches being won by Hong Kong.” Brenda re-joined the HKHAWS committee in 1991 as Fixtures Secretary and became Chair in around 1997,serving in that role for 7 years, before focusing on her next role as Vice-Chair of HKHA Council. During her extensive hockey career, she has also played for KCC,HKFC and HK Veterans.

Footnote - If you are organising a Valley reunion in London, Rowena Smith is now to be found running “the Old China Hand” in Clerkenwell!