A World Cup we could actually win? The women's hockey team on striking Olympic gold

Maddie Hinch is carrying a lot on her shoulders – literally. As the England hockey team’s goalkeeper walks towards me, it’s impossible not to notice the lumpen sports bag strapped to her back, containing her 15kg of protective kit.

It’s a pipingly hot day at Bisham Abbey, the national sports centre in Berkshire, and if I’m struggling to keep cool in the shade of a tree, then Hinch must be close to combustion lugging that thing around. She spots the subject of my gaze and offers a knowing smile by way of introduction: ‘I’m going to burn this bag when I retire.’

Hinch is perhaps the most recognisable face of a group of women who captured the public imagination during the 2016 Rio Olympics (ironic, given that she’s the one player in the team who wears a metal mask). As Team GB battled and bludgeoned their way to gold, Hinch was the star. In the final, decided by a penalty shoot-out against a technically superior Dutch team, Hinch held back the tide, saving every single shot sent her way.

Today, at the age of 29, she’s widely acknowledged as the best in the world – having won the International Hockey Federation’s Best Goalkeeper of the Year Award two years running. She need not reach for the matches just yet. Besides, there’s the small matter of a home World Cup to deal with.

The Women's hockey World Cup will be at home
The Women's Hockey World Cup will be at home  Credit: Neil Bedford

On the day we meet, Hinch and her teammates are less than four weeks away from the opening game (2pm today) of what will be arguably the biggest tournament of their careers: the first women’s hockey World Cup that this country has ever hosted.

This time, they’re playing as England (all the players at Rio were English anyway), and they start the competition ranked second in the world. Expectations are palpably high, not least because the nation will be looking for a second hit of patriotic pride after watching the men’s football team reach the semi-finals in Russia. 

In the past, that kind of pressure has crippled England teams. However, what becomes clear while talking to Hinch, her captain Alex Danson (another gold-medal winner at Rio), and two up- and-coming members of the squad, Anna Toman and Hannah Martin, is that they’re more excited than scared. A home tournament gives them an opportunity to show their talent to the British public – something that doesn’t happen often. As England once again holds its breath, you’d back these women to carry the weight of the World Cup on their shoulders.

‘The best way we can manage expectations is to rely on our values,’ says Danson. ‘We will go game by game and behave in a way that will support us to win.’ 

Those words smell suspiciously like the media-trained platitudes that haunt modern sport – ‘respect the opponent’, ‘give 110 per cent’, ‘take each match as it comes’ – but in fact, they’re the opposite. The players all directly attribute England and Team GB’s success to their profound and unbreakable team ethic (Hinch calls it their ‘USP’), so when Danson uses the word ‘values’, she’s talking about something meaningful. Training involves countless hours of player meetings in which the women democratically set rules for their behaviour and goals for their work.

The idea is to make everyone feel like they are helping to create the team as a whole, and for collective responsibility to trump selfishness.

‘I envy the opportunity that football has to get bigger and bigger. I’d love to see that opportunity shared’
‘I envy the opportunity that football has to get bigger and bigger. I’d love to see that opportunity shared’ Credit: Neil Bedford

Alongside this value-setting process, extensive psychological preparation takes place. Players are encouraged to share their inner thoughts – worries, hopes, niggles with teammates – so that they know exactly what’s going on inside each others’ heads during crunch moments in matches.

‘We talk about what we’re like on a good day and a bad day, and what we need from each other when it’s not going well,’ says Hinch. ‘At the top level in sport, everyone’s a good athlete. It’s about what’s going on between your ears that matters. It’s the ability to stick together whatever’s happening.’

In Rio, the idea of sticking together was so strong that the team moved en masse while in the athlete’s village. It projected a sense of impenetrable strength, like Roman soldiers in testudo formation. The players also took the significant decision to come off social media so that they would be immune to the influence of external criticism.

Today, Hannah Martin, England’s sparky 23-year-old forward, tells me the players haven’t yet decided whether to replicate the ban for the World Cup – avoiding public comment is going to be harder at a home tournament compared to the bubble of Rio. Plus, Twitter and Facebook offer them something that the players have long strived for: public visibility. 

Alex Danson and Hannah Martin 
Alex Danson and Hannah Martin  Credit: Neil Bedford

‘Social media is a powerful tool that we can use to our advantage,’ explains Hinch. ‘It’s a platform for us to promote the sport, and that’s what we don’t have over bigger sports like football.’

Ah, football, the elephant on the pitch. The contrast between the lives of these England players and the ones who have been representing us in Russia is vast, even though both groups are full-time sportspeople. Whereas football players should be able to retire by the age of 30 and never worry about money again, Danson says the funding that England hockey players receive through the National Lottery ‘gives you an existence where you can pay your rent and eat for the month’. Most players still work on the side, with one eye on the future. In her spare time, Martin says she’s taking a course in marketing: ‘I don’t want to finish hockey and be in the dark.’

Talking to the four players, I get the sense that the money issue doesn’t irk them as much as football’s habit of hogging the public’s attention.

‘There’s a reason why every kid grows up thinking “I want to play football,”’ says Danson. ‘It’s not because they’re born as natural football players. It’s because they see it, so they go practise it in the park or kick a ball around at playtime. They’re taught it at schools. I envy the opportunity that football has to get bigger and bigger. I’d love to see that opportunity shared.’

Maddie Hinch and Anna Toman 
Maddie Hinch and Anna Toman  Credit: Neil Bedford

‘When you look at other sports and the fan base they have, I think hockey should have just as many fans,’ adds Toman, a 25-year-old midfielder who broke into the team early last year. ‘At least the recognition is on the up. Four years ago, it was a struggle to find the World Cup on TV. Now BT Sport is showing our matches. Even the difference in that is amazing.’

For Danson, the topic inevitably leads to another battle: to level the gender playing field. ‘There’s a natural leaning towards men’s sport over women’s,’ she begins. ‘Actually, “natural” is the wrong word. I don’t think it’s natural. You look at the back of a newspaper and if you find a story about women’s sport, you’re lucky. Only seven per cent of print media goes to women’s sport.

More shockingly,  just one per cent of commercial sponsorship goes to women’s sport, which is frightening.’ To illustrate the point, Toman tells me that a friend of hers, a male England rugby player, makes more from one international match than she gets from an entire year of funding.

And yet, our women’s teams are doing better than ever. We won hockey gold in Rio, our cricketers are currently World Champions, our rugby players came second in the World Cup last year, and our netballers just won their first ever Commonwealth Games gold, beating Australia, the world number one, in the final. ‘Our women are smashing it,’ says Hinch, ‘but we can’t seem to make the gap to men any smaller.’

The players ardently hope a home World Cup can help redress the balance. They point out that the signs are already good: hockey participation at club level rose by 10,000 members after Rio; the nine million people who tuned into the Olympic final shows that the audience is out there; and the Lee Valley hockey stadium has been increased to 10,400 seats to meet demand for World Cup tickets.

It’s a thought that sends a smile across Danson’s face. ‘Walking out for our first game at a home World Cup is going to be so special,’ she grins. ‘I’m just going to enjoy it. I’m going to enjoy how far our sport has come so quickly.’

Investec, the specialist bank and asset manager, sponsors the England Women’s Hockey Team. Women’s Hockey World Cup runs until 5 August

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