Anne Proctor and her daughter Jane-Ellen Negus recently attended the Women’s Masters Indoor Championships in Maryborough.

Anne’s school friends were playing hockey and it looked like fun, so Anne decided to join them at the age of 12. It has been 58 years since her first involvement with the sport.
Hockey became a family sport. Anne built a house near the hockey fields and as she always played, the kids had no choice. The whole family loved it and still do.

Anne has only every played for one Club – Wallaroos. She played junior hockey and at 15 moved into senior hockey and continued to play until she was 55 years old – 43 years continuously.

Her involvement in hockey has been at a Club, Representative, State and National Level. At Club level, Anne has been involved in all aspects of Wallaroo Hockey Club – Player, Coach, Umpire, member of the Executive, Life Member, Patron form 2013 until current, along with hours of fundraising and other club activities, including Anniversary Committees. As a player at Club level she captained and played in the A Grade team for 11 years consecutively and achieved six premierships in that time.

At Association level for Maryborough Hockey Association, Anne has been a selector and coach at all levels from Juniors to Seniors through to Masters. Anne is also involved in Technical Official roles.

At State and National level, Anne has represented Queensland Masters as a player and Coach. She has played for Australian Masters and has been an Australian Selector for many years.

All of Anne’s siblings (Doug, Ethel, Harry, Donald, Heather) played hockey and now her children (Jane-Ellen and Andrew) and their children (Amelia, Ella, Abbey and Lucy) play hockey.
Anne’s greatest moments are

• playing in a Senior State Championship as centre forward and scoring goals to beat the highly rated Brisbane Team. After the game Queensland selector at the time, Ruby Robinson, asked why she didn’t nominate for state. The answer was simple, there was no money in our family to provide for such events. This memory has stayed with Anne as it was an honour to be acknowledged by someone of Ruby’s stature – that’s all you need sometimes, and it makes you feel 10 feet tall.
• playing for Queensland Masters for over 10 years and achieving selection in the first Australian Women’s masters over 45s team. She had been part of the masters scene since its infancy.
• to be part of that very first Aussie Team to wear the green and gold, to represent my country is indeed a fantastic moment for Anne and one that she will always cherish.

Jane-Ellen played hockey from the age of five because she had no choice as her family was already involved when she came along. Her involvement as a player and an official at both club and association level has spanned almost 32 years – playing, coaching, managing, social media representative and umpiring. Still currently involved, Jane-Ellen has received many awards for her umpiring.

As mentioned, her Mum Anne is still active in hockey, her daughter Amelia and her brother Andrew and his family are also still playing. Jane-Ellen plays indoor hockey as well.

Jane-Ellen’s best ever hockey experience is the 2009 club grand final. Her team had finished fourth in the competition and after winning the first semi-final they went on to win the grand final with Jane-Ellen receiving the player of the final award. Jane-Ellen said their goalkeeper had never played before and it was just such a great feeling to come from fourth position to win the premiership.