Alison Keogh – Olympic Games, it’s Official!

Alison Keogh is officially named as part of the umpiring panel for hockey at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

 

Not only will Paris 2024 feature our IRL Men’s Hockey Team, but it will also feature representation through our very own Alison Keogh who will be one of the umpires officiating in both Men’s and Women’s Hockey during the Olympics. 

“I feel very honoured and proud to be appointed to the Paris Olympics and am really looking forward to the experience and opportunity” Alison stated, ahead of departing for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. 

 

Hockey runs deep in the Keogh family already. Her father John had played for Railway Union in his early days before taking up umpiring. Alison began playing hockey at 12 as it was the primary sport of her secondary school, Loreto Beaufort in Dublin. Joining the sport quite late did not deter her or prevent her from loving the game and she persisted, gradually improving, and rarely missing a session. Her passion for the game grew and she joined Three Rock Rovers at 16. Over the next few years, she progressed from 5ths to 1sts & 2nds, embraced the social side of the club, met some of her closest friends, joined committees, and eventually became club captain. Probably the most important first experience the club afforded her though was to pick up a whistle and umpiring a game!  

Alison described the process as follows:  

“When I joined Three Rock, my Dad, who had umpired years beforehand, was persuaded back onto the pitch to umpire some of my games. I quickly began to question him as to why calls were being blown against me and like most people, I was told that I knew the rules so well as a player that I should see how it feels on the other side of the whistle. So, at 19, having never done any other games, I stepped onto a pitch to umpire the Three Rock Ladies 5ths in Division 14, and surprisingly found myself enjoying it.” 

But it took a while for Alison to fully embrace umpiring as, initially, she did not want to give up playing. She had been umpiring 3rds and 4ths club games for Three Rock Rovers intermittently before the Leinster Hockey Umpires Association began appointing her to Division 2 games. And the development of her career took off rapidly.  

In her first year of senior hockey, she got a call one night informing her that the European Hockey Federation was running an Umpire Development Programme (UDP) and that Ireland wanted to put her forward. The selected group of young umpires would be mentored over 3 years, involving trips to watch international tournaments, practical weekends at club games in other countries and support for any questions that one might have. The idea was to fast-track and support individuals to international standards.  

Alison studied physiotherapy at UCD and was trying to juggle a bit of playing with practicing physiotherapy and umpiring. 

Alison explained: “I was not sure where career-wise I was going to go initially after graduating with my degree. I spent 10 years doing physiotherapy for Three Rock Rovers Men’s first team and it was only after I decided career-wise to go back into academia that I was able to commit to umpiring in my spare time. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly as I still loved playing, but I took the faith of those around me and decided to put myself forward. Thankfully, I was chosen and from 2009 to 2012 I was part of the UDP’s Group 4. We were taken on weekends to the Euro Nations, the Indoor World Cup, the EHL and practical weekends in Dublin and Glasgow.  

During these three years, I was playing less and less and doing more umpiring, including my first international tournament, the u18 Europeans in Holland in 2011. It was a gradual process but by 2012, at 24, I was umpiring every weekend.  The FIH World League in Prague in 2012 was the first international event overseas but I didn’t get the mark required. That came the following year. I went over to a European Club tournament in Italy with UCD in May 2013.  

I was awarded my FIH international badge in 2013 following the Euro Nations C Division competition in Greece. By then I was doing Division 1 in Leinster, progressing to the Irish Hockey League and then the EY Hockey League when it began. Umpiring is like driving a car though, it is only when you have your license that you really learn how to drive! There are four further grades of international umpire ahead of the FIH badge, so I realised that if I wanted to go to the top, I still had a lot of work to do!  

Since I earned my badge, I umpired an Irish Senior Cup final, four IHL/EYHL finals, 11 u21 international matches, and 43 senior international matches. Those matches have taken place at a range of competitions and venues including the U21 Euro Nations in Belgium, the Junior World Cup in Chile, the Euro Nations in Holland, and the World League Finals in New Zealand, progressing up the ranks to the World Development Panel (the 2nd highest rank). Listing them like that makes them sound easy but there was a lot of learning experiences and challenges in between all of those tournaments and years!” 

With such an impressive portfolio of games under her belt Alison reminisced about her favourite game she has umpired to date:  

“My favourite game would have to be the FIH World League Final between New Zealand and Argentina in 2017 hosted by New Zealand. Argentina, the Olympic gold medalists, went into this final as red-hot favourites and the game was expected to be very one-sided. But New Zealand turned up and managed to beat Argentina on the day.”