Sarah Evans

I started playing hockey at fillies level in junior school and soon was playing under the guidance of Shirley Houghton. Important basic skills and technics were taught to us at the Convent under our coach and as hockey Captain for our Grade 7 team we won the season. Along with Triathlons it was a close competition as to where I was going to concentrate my focus. Representing Zimbabwe on three occasions for triathlons and deciding in 2000 after participating and coming third in the All Africa Triathlon held in Bulawayo, that hockey was the game I loved.

Some 18years later and I am still hooked. In 1999 I was selected for the U16A team for a tournament in Potchestroom vs SA and Namibia and again in 2000 I played for Zimbabwe U16A side. The following two years, 2001 & 2002 I represented Zim playing for the U18A and U18B sides. South Africa travelled to Bulawayo and we played a three game series for practice against them in Bulawayo in 2002. These were my first caps as a Zimbabwe Woman’s player for the National team.

In 2003 I left Zimbabwe to further my studies in South Africa and played for the Wanderers Sports Club where I represented their ladies premiere league team and in that same year was selected to take part for Zim in the All Africa Games in Abuja Nigeria. It was an amazing experience and a big eye opener. The heat was unbelievable and took its toll on our performance. After this tour I returned to South Africa for studies and changed clubs to Pirates ladies who were coached by ex-Zimbabwean and Springbok player Lindsay Carlisle and men’s Springbok player Brett Tucker. We had a few successful seasons and remained one of the top three teams in the premiere league. I learned so much about what was expected in terms of fitness and training to even contemplate an International game.

After returning to live in Zimbabwe in 2009 I had a chance to try out for the Zimbabwe womans side again for the Africa Olympic Qualifier held in Bulawayo. Being quite a few years older and having not played hockey for 2 years whilst I was living in Lusaka, Zambia I wasn’t confident of a place but thankfully  I made the team and spent a few weeks playing against South Africa, Ghana and Kenya.  Training before this tournament was tricky as we had no astroturf to train on and the Arundel turf was newly laid and not being utilized much as yet. We unfortunately lost out on a bronze medal when the game finished in penalty flicks Ghana, but I feel it was the best hockey I have seen a National ladies side play in some years.

Currently I play in and run a club called Chelsea Drifters in Harare and we have a wide variety of players from school girls to some ex national players from some years ago. We won the Indoor league in 2011 and we won the field league in Harare for the 2012 season. There are many promising things happing in hockey and a rebuilding phase is in the process, having had a lapse for about 10years where hockey had to revert back to grass. Even more exciting is the prospect that the National Stadium – Magamba – that we all played on from when it was built in 1997 will get a very much needed revamp and a new carpet laid. This means that we may be able to host a few more International tournaments and so even more exciting is I may be able to work towards a few more games for my country in the future !

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