On their current Australian tour, the West Indies cricket team reportedly each did their own thing when it was time to meet the Prime Minister of Australia before a game against his Cricket XI.
While Prime Minister Howard was meeting his own team, the West Indies were emerging in "dribs and drabs" on the other side of the ground. A columnist wrote that "there was not a West Indies cap in sight and some members of the squad were bedecked in track suit tops and others in bottoms....If these players have no respect for the Prime Minister of their host country do they have no respect for themselves." At the end of this whitewash tour where even lowly placed Zimbabwe have beaten us this last week, it was obvious that the effect of slovenly attire was slovenly play.
Where was the manager, was my immediate reaction. Isn't that the job of the manager of any team to insist that every member of the team is uniformly dressed for whatever the occasion.
And I remembered one of our unsung hockey administrators, Lorna Phipps, who served on the Trinidad and Tobago Women's Hockey Association's Executive Committee for twenty-eight years until her retirement in 1987. One of the most respected but yet well-loved managers to have toured with not only the National Women's Teams (senior and junior) but also with her club, Rockets, league champions for seven consecutive years in the sixties/seventies.
As can be seen from the picture which appears on this page, Phipps, like the team, wore full track suit for this team picture at the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1986 in Mexico. This was the last national hockey team to have brought home a gold medal.
Phipps believes "you should set standards and guidelines from the beginning of the tour so that players must know what is expected of them from the manager from early, and it should work, it just cannot be otherwise. You lay down the rules from the time we leave here and everybody must follow the rules, which for the hockey women would include things like you can only go out in two's or groups, you have to be in at a certain time, and most importantly would have been who roomed together."
Things like the numerous gold chains which flap around the necks of our cricketers would be a no-no with this no-nonsense lady manager: "not even a watch would they be allowed to wear, the umpire has a watch and there is usually a large clock at most playing fields." What would have been your reaction had your team straggled out in mismatched clothes to meet the Prime Minister of the host country at different times? I asked Phipps. "You would have been disciplined one way or the other by being benched or even the threat of being sent home and nobody wants to go home in disgrace."
"Before a game, we met at a certain hour and discussed plans for the game with the coach. I would tell them exactly what time to be ready and what attire was to be worn. The only way you were not in part of the official uniforms, is if you had a day off. The coach had his job on the field of play, anything they wanted to do off the field of play they never went to the coach or to the trainer, they had to come to the manageress, but they had respect also for the coach off the field."
On the subject of practice sessions which have been reported as problematic for the West Indies, Phipps joined her team no matter how early in the day "and they all had to be out there to practise. That is why it is important that a manager have some knowledge of the game."
She feels strongly that managers must have a lot of discipline within themselves, and should always be a member of the executive: "The executive has to direct the manager as to what is expected of both she and the team, if you are not a member of the executive you will have to be called in for briefings, as a member you know all details and what the executive expects of you. That was always the case with women's hockey."
Phipps, who served as Match Secretary for the 28 year period that she was a member of the executive, gives credit to hockey administrator Adelle King for her guidance in managing teams. "The two of us also went as delegates to World Conferences in 1975 and 1979 so by the time I became national manager in 86 I knew the rules of the world body."
She does however agree that differences could arise in dealing with a team of adult professionals, such as the West Indies cricket team, some of whom are multimillionaires and most of whom are accustomed to playing abroad vis a vis a group of young women, some of whom might be in a strange country for the first time. "It would be infinitely easier than managing a West Indies Team, a lot of them can play but lack discipline. The manager should have made sure everybody was well attired before they left the hotel. I do not say you mustn't treat them as professionals but they must listen. Minutes before they went out on that ground I would have warned them you are representing your country and it is the Prime Minister of our host country you will be meeting."