STAR shot-stopper and 2012 Olympic hopeful James Fair is celebrating winning yet another award.

The 29-year-old goalkeeper, who hails from Pulford, has been named Performance Player of the Year by England Hockey, the sport’s governing body in this country.

It is another major coup for the former Deeside Ramblers player, whose heroic displays at last year’s Commonwealth Games led to him being selected in the International Hockey Federation’s ‘All-Star’ teams for 2010.

Fair, also a Great Britain international with his sights fixed firmly on next year’s London Olympics, was honoured to be named as England’s player of the year.

The former King’s School student said: “It was very pleasing to be named and for my performances over the past year to be recognised among all those players. It was a really nice feeling.”

But there were mixed fortunes for Fair and his England teammates in the inaugural London Cup tournament, played in Chiswick.

The host nation could manage only third place in the four-team event, which included a shock 4-2 loss to Belgium and a tightly-fought 5-4 defeat to Korea. England salvaged some pride in their final group match with a 3-1 win over New Zealand, and avenged their opening-day defeat with a 5-2 victory against Belgium to claim third spot.

“It is a shame we started so slow as we wanted to play in the final in front of the English crowd,” said Fair.

The competition will be held again next year as a warm-up event for the London Olympics.

Fair, who plays for Cannock in the National League, added: “We are progressing in the right direction and we have the European Championships coming up, which we won in 2009, a tournament over December and then it’ll be looking ahead to the Olympics.”