Ex-England player honoured for services to hockey
FORMER Ealing Hockey Club player and administrator Katie Dodd has been awarded an MBE for services to hockey.
Dodd has been involved in hockey for the best part of 40 years and her roles within the sport are hugely significant.
She reached the highest level as a player, winning 26 caps for England in the 1970s and 1980s, captaining the nation to bronze at the European Indoor Championships.
Off the pitch, she served more than 25 years at Ealing Women Hockey Club and became a hugely respected administrator at club, county, southern region and national level; also part of the committee of the All England Women’s Hockey Association.
Notably, she was also a member of the England Hockey board from 2008 to 2015.
Another of her remarkable contributions to the sport came as the first ever Chair of The Hockey Museum, starting in 2011.
Under Dodd’s stewardship the Woking-based museum has gone from strength to strength, now housing roughly 75,000 items from in excess of 1,000 collections.
The museum formally became a charity in 2014, and then in 2018 it was awarded full Arts Council England Museum Accreditation status, as well as the International Hockey Federation’s President’s award for services to the sport.
The museum has hosted exhibitions at a number of international events and has also undertaken an incredible amount of work to accurately catalogue the history of the England and Great Britain international teams, among numerous other projects. In 2018, Dodd became one of only eight people to have been awarded the England Hockey Member of Honour; the highest accolade awarded by the governing body.
England Hockey chief executive Nick Pink said: “This is a worthy award for Katie after a lifetime of service to the sport. Her contribution to the running of hockey is one of the most significant that anybody has made in recent years, so it is only right that she is recognised in this manner.
“In the past decade she has
helped create a Hockey Museum that the entire game can benefit from for many years to come.
“On both a personal and professional level I would like to offer congratulations to her, and this is a spark of good news as we all enter 2021 with renewed hope for what is ahead.”