nigel allen

I started skating when I was 11 years old in the streets and at roller discos, where we played uni hock and where I guess my first experience of hockey on skates began. My friends and I and Andy played hockey on skates with field hockey sticks and a tennis ball to begin with on our school playground and we absolutely loved it.

It wasn’t until I was 15 years old that we found Roller Hockey and became the schoolboy team for Milton Keynes and came runners up in our first taste of league hockey.

We played in various leagues, Eastern Counties, ND2 and Chiltern league and grew as a team for many years until the team broke up due to various reasons. Andy and I went to North London to play there for a couple of seasons where we first met Carlos Amaral the current Coaching Director of England.

A few years later I played for Houghton Regis in ND1 for a season which we won that year.

At the age of 26 I was selected to play for England in my first European Championships and went on to play 2 more Europeans in Portugal and Florence in Italy and 4 world Championships in Mexico, Uraguay, Macau and England where we won a Gold medal in the Group B’s. These Championships taught me a lot about the game of rink Hockey and how far behind the Latin countries we were. We are slowly closing the gap, but still have a long way to go, but continually moving in the right direction.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing for England and was proud to have Captained twice in Macau and Portugal and also sharing the majority of the Championships with my brother Andrew which made the experience even more special.

I retired at 33 from international hockey and have become a coach to many of the LRHC teams which, I do enjoy and have had a lot of success with the teams winning leagues, and cups in the last 8 years.
Although I coach, my passion is to play competitively, which I do in ND1 and hope I can one day play in a team with both my boys and brother which would be amazing.

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I am one of the Head coaches at LRHC and organise the fixtures for all teams also and get involved wherever I can in the further development of this great club we have.

Over the years I have experienced many parent volunteers who help build this club and drive it forward and must say presently that the committee, coaches and referees make LRHC the strongest it has been and the club will just get bigger and better, that I am sure of and I am proud to be a part of it.

Nigel Allen