The list of all those who contributed over the years to what the large family of international Hockey is today would be very long.

By Etienne Glichitch, FIH Honorary President

However, the contribution of Eileen Hyndman, who left us recently, deserves a particular recognition, since her intelligence and her vision made possible the merger of the two federations who separately governed the women Hockey until 1983: the FIH for one part and the IFWHA for the other.

The coming together started with the unification of the rules of the game which took several years; it continued with a confident and fruitful collaboration before concluding in 1983 with the long-awaited merger.

If I evoke this period so important in the life of our sport, it is to do Eileen Hyndman once more justice for the major role she played in the preparation and the accomplishment of this merger. She managed at the same time to convince her colleagues at IFWHA to trust the FIH as she was doing herself. The results proved her to be right.

FIH Vice-president from 1982 to 1992, then Honorary Vice-president, the big-hearted Scotswoman received the FIH Order of Merit in 1984. The Hockey family knows how much it owes her and will faithfully cherish her memory.