OMTHC 50th Anniversary Dinner - September 2016

On Saturday 24 September the Old Merchant Taylors' Hockey Club (OMTHC) and the OMT Society hosted a dinner at the Merchant Taylors’ Company Hall in London to celebrate OMTHC’s 50th anniversary. All parts of the "Hockey Family” were well represented by the 221 present. Many guests from the school including the Head Master, Bursar, Development Director, Director of Sport, and Head of Hockey were joined by many past and current OMTHC players, parents, and senior representatives of the OMT Society, including its President and Chairman, Hon Secretary, past Presidents and current Vice Presidents. The Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company and his wife were also present.

OMTHC’s 50th anniversary theme was “Celebrating the past to develop our future.”

Imran Sherwani, 1988 GB Olympic Gold medalist, scorer of the last two goals in GB’s 3-1 victory over W. Germany in the final, proposed the toast to OMTHC to which Varun Paul, Chairman OMTHC responded. Philip Newfield, President, OMT Society, also spoke. Tributes were paid to the late Charles Hull, who started hockey at The School in 1969, and the late Geoff Ascott, who was responsible for the OMT Society agreeing for OMTHC to be formed in 1966, and was its first Chairman for 11 years. To honour these gentlemen OMTHC created The Hull-Ascott Memorial Trophy for achievement in hockey, and this was presented by Imran Sherwani to its first recipient Karan Sofat, a current School 1st XI player who regularly plays in the OMTHC 1st XI, and in the Summer of 2016 represented England U16 in The European Championships.

In his speech Varun Paul emphasised the close bond between all parts of the "Hockey Family”, related some stories and achievements of OMTHC’s past, and outlined in some detail, the early success of the new OMTHC youth development project that is designed to benefit both the school and OMT hockey over many years to come.

OMT Society President, Philip Newfield, said: “I feel that this was a truly magnificent evening when the "Hockey Family” gathered together in very large numbers in celebration of OMTHC’s 50th anniversary." It was yet another example of the very close relationship between the school and OMT Society where both work together so supportively of each other. The OMT Society would like to thank to all who attended and made the evening so very special and enjoyable.

Please click on the image below to view more photos of the evening in Flickr. Alternatively, you can scroll through the images using the navigation buttons that will appear if you hover your mouse over the first photo.
 

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