Sherlock homes in on Premier League after hitting 50 goals
Last updated 20:03, Thursday, 27 March 2008
A GOAL-SCORING prowess which fashions 50 goals in 21 games would command in football a transfer value of, oh, probably £30 million.
Hockey starlet Kath Sherlock pays for the privilege of creaming the opposition.
There’s annual subs of £40 and a £7 match fee, not to mention the £2 tip-up for training on Wednesdays.
Yet the pleasure she gets from her involvement with Wigton Hockey Club is priceless.
And catching.
Wigton have just wrapped up the North Women’s Hockey League Division One title to give them a second successive promotion.
They’ll be all jolly hockey sticks next season in the North Premier League - the highest echelon ever achieved by a Cumbrian club.
So the celebrations when the bottle green and navy blues play their last game of the current campaign against LA Carnegie at Dalston on Saturday are likely to be unbridled.
There are upwards of 100 members at Wigton, ranging from the front-liners through junior ranks which include some boys.
And though centre forward Kath, 22, has taken centre stage with her goal-scoring exploits - it was 70 last season - she says: “I’d happily go through an entire season without scoring at all as long as we won the league. A lot of them are made for me anyway rather than them being down to any individual flair.
“It’s a team affair and it’s always preached that there’s no “i” in team. For instance Sarah McCall the goalkeeper, the two midfielders Rebecca Weston and Lisa Potter, defender Gail Laverty and forward Emma Taggart are relative newcomers and they have played as much a part in our achievement as the rest of us.
“How thrilling it must be for them to come to a club that wins a title.”
Hockey is not a game for the faint-hearted, so you can gauge the substance of those who participate by blonde-haired, green-eyed Kath's assertion that she left netball behind at Caldew School because it was for “softies”. “Oh hockey can be rough and tough,” she says. “I can play dirty with the best of them. I’ll always bend the rules and push things to the limits if I think I can get away with it. Mind you, if you’re going to give it you’ve got to take it. I once got the ball full in my face and ended up with a split lip which needed eight stitches.
“There’s no great science or technique behind my goal-scoring. For instance I’m not very good at tackling though I am quite quick. I just like to hit it hard.”
Wigton rely heavily for their existence on sponsorship and one aspect of this is that the donated team bus driven by Tony Cook whisks them to all their away matches.
“There have been some horrible trips this season such as Berwick-upon-Tweed and Hull,” explains Kath “but our promotion means we’ll be up against all Lancashire teams such as Bolton and Preston.
“Tony’s a brave lad taking on 16 women, particularly if we’ve had a bad game and we’re sulking.”
Kath hails from a family steeped in the sporting tradition - dad Stan is something of a legend at Carlisle RUFC, where brother Bobby and sister Hannah play now - yet Wigton remains the limit of her ambitions.
“The higher up the chain you go in hockey the more stuck up the people are,” she explains.
“It’s not a case of what you know but who you know and very cliquey and that wouldn’t do for me.”
She’s more at home in the company of her constant companion, two-year-old springador Charlie, who travels everywhere with the team, and a boyfriend who plays football for Dalston Zimmers, a team which gained national exposure recently when three of their players suffered broken legs in the space of nine games.
And no, there wasn’t a hockey stick in sight!
Hockey will take on a high profile this summer when both the men’s and women’s Great Britain teams contest the Beijing Olympics.
Fans will have the chance to watch the women’s side at Reading as they continue their preparation for the Olympics by taking on Argentina in two internationals on successive nights in May.
The Argentinean women are one of the most attractive sides in the game and are currently ranked No 2 in the world.
Their star player, Luciana Aymar, is the current World Hockey Women’s Player of the Year, an award she has also won on three previous occasions.
Great Britain travelled to Argentina in November where they put in some good performances in a five match test series with results including a 3-0 victory for the Brits and a 0-0 draw. They narrowly lost 1-0 on two occasions with the fifth test a close 2-1 defeat.
“I guess we’ll all be watching the action in Beijing on television,” says Kath. “But, as always, I’d rather be playing than watching.”
