HOCKEY: A MAN who played just two of Winnington Park's 100 seasons will be among the special guests at the club's centenary dinner in April.
But then Norman Hughes, pictured above, did go on to be hockey's equivalent of football's Billy Wright, or Bobby Robson even.
Indeed, within hockey, Hughes is talked about in revered terms as footballers might of Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton.
He was one of the country's best ever players - hockey's first to win 100 international caps - and also went on to play and coach Great Britain.
Winnington Park, its officials and players during Hughes' brief period in Northwich in the early 1970s had no small part in forging an outstanding career.
Hughes said: 'I may forget some names but I remember the club's hospitality.
'They made me feel welcome. They knew I would beggar off after two years and it would have been easy for the players to complain and say it wasn't right.
'There was no resentment but lots of good advice. All friendly positive stuff, no rollockings.
'There were no superstars and we were playing teams who had senior internationals, so I learned a real lesson in the value of teamwork,' said Hughes, who now runs a hockey equipment company in Wakefield.
Hughes lived at Church Minshull and attended Crewe Grammar School and was recruited by hockey rather than took the game up.
'I was told by the sports master I was too small for football and a friend cajoled me into playing what I then thought was a sissy sport, a game for big girls' blouses.
'I soon found out how wrong I was.'
Hughes joined Crewe Vagrants and played his way into the Cheshire and Northern schools' teams when the men in charge, former Welsh international Geoff Poole and Peter Cross, suggested he needed to move to a better pitch to progress further.
'I switched to Winnington. If every club had pitches as good as Park's, there would have been no need for the sport to switch to plastic. They were magnificent,' recalled Hughes.
His sixth-form years were spent at Park and he was selected for England U19s School-boys, touring Holland and Germany and playing in the home internationals.
Hughes then spent four years at Leeds University and did not re-cross the Pennines, even playing his county games for Yorkshire. He joined the Wakefield club and stayed. At 51 he still plays second and third-team hockey.
'I was mad keen to play for Cheshire but they did not like the idea of picking students from out of their county. That upset me a bit, then Yorkshire gave me my first chance so when Cheshire eventually called, I said no.
'I have stuck with Wakefield because loyalty is important. You see it less and less in all sports as players move around. But you don't build leaders like that. Leaders stick around to make their club better.
'Wakefield were in the National League for its first five years and I went on to play for England,' he said.
He ended with 105 caps and 32 for Great Britain, winning a bronze at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and silver in the '86 World Cup in London.
'We missed out on Moscow and I still resent it.
'Because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Government pressured a boycott of the Moscow Games. It was nonsense, they did stop trade with the USSR but used the Olympics as a soft target.
'But it worked the other way in LA. We were first reserve and then the Russians, who were among the favourites, didn't come. We were called up with just 10 weeks to prepare and we worked harder than ever to get ready.
'As a team we were at our peak four years earlier and some of the players had retired. A bronze was a good achievement.
'I was a Paul Ince-type defensive midfielder, stop and give, and scored no more than a dozen international goals.'
Like England football legend Wright, he was first past 100 caps - before the days of roll-on roll-off substitutes - and like Bobby Robson and others, he went on to run the country he had played for.
From 1988 to '92, Hughes was England and GB coach, steering his sides to a European bronze, fifth in the World Cup and sixth at the Barcelona Games.
Hughes added: 'I still follow Winnington and Crewe Vagrants. They started me in club hockey and took me under their wings.'
