SEVERINe a. ameur

My daughter started attending Roller Disco with her friend at our local sports centre in Bedford where she discovered Roller Hockey.  

She immediately enjoyed the sport and wanted to develop her skills.  We looked at the closest Roller Hockey Club and found LRHC.  

We were warmly welcomed into the club and my daughter has enjoyed training and competing with her team for more than 5 years.  

At first, I was just a supporter but found an interest in time keeping.  I started by  volunteering at home tournaments.

At the recent AGM I was made aware of the previous Timekeeper Officer was stepping down and I decided to put my name forward.  

As a Timekeeper Officer I am in charge of organising timekeepers of all our home tournaments in all age categories.  This season we have 9 teams competing in various leagues including the Premier League.  

In addition, an accreditation scheme will be put in place next season by the NRHA and this season I encouraged as many members as possible to take their accreditation exams to be prepared for next season when it becomes compulsory.  

I am very proud to say that LRHC has one of the highest numbers of accredited timekeepers in our region and nationally.  

In addition, I am also a team assistant for my daughter’s team.  I am thoroughly enjoying the experience as working with the coach allowed me to develop a better understand of the rules and tactics of the sport.  

Roller Hockey is not well known in the UK, and I would like to see it develop and become more popular.  As with many other sports we have noticed that girls disengage from Roller Hockey in their teens for various reasons.

In the future I would like to work on developing solutions to attract more girls and keep them into the sport at grassroots, regional and national levels.  

Girls are sometimes overwhelmed and overlooked when playing in mixed leagues and developing a strong women league for all age groups would be a solution to keep them playing.