At 26 years old, it is quite an honour, and quite a responsibility, to be captain of your country in one of the most popular sports in the world. 

But add on top of that the fact that you are struggling thorough a Masters degree, holding down a mortgage and coaching some of the country’s best young athletes, and all of a sudden the word ‘responsibility’ takes on a whole new meaning.

But Graham Moodie, August’s ‘Champion in their Field’, takes it all in his stride.  And although he may have a lot on his plate, Scottish Hockey’s equivalent to David Beckham (blonde flowing locks intact) is grateful for the opportunities he has been given.

In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that he wasn’t quite so fortunate in certain aspects in his childhood, he may never have been discovered in the sport in which he so excels, as he revealed to In The Winning Zone in the lounge of his new home in Edinburgh’s suburbs.

“I used to play football when I was younger.  I was OK, but I wasn’t a star player or anything.  I was a late developer, I was quite small, and in football certainly if you are big you have more of a chance at getting through at a certain age. In hockey it’s not quite as physical, so I could get away with being smaller and more skilful.”

So from there his mind was made up – hockey was the sport of choice for Moodie, for which Scotland is truly thankful.

“I wouldn’t say it was a hard choice to pick the hockey. I remember when I was about fourteen or fifteen I got asked to go along to the Scotland under-16 trials.  I didn’t get in, but the fact that I had gone to a Scotland trial at that age was pretty amazing, whereas in the football I was no where near a Scotland trial.  There was no real big choice.  I was a lot better at hockey than I ever was at football.”

Although a late bloomer, it didn’t take Graham long to be standing tall on the hockey circuit.  By the age of fourteen he was playing senior hockey, and by fifteen he had become a regular starter for his club, Inverleith.  And even though he admits they weren’t a particularly strong club at the time, he was earning his place in the team against much older, stronger, more experienced players.  So what was his secret? 

Unsurprisingly, it was commitment, perseverance and hard work that gifted Graham his first step on the ladder. 

“I was a really keen, dedicated player. I was pretty fit and I always went to training.  At that time the club wasn’t doing well and there wasn’t really the dedication to training that you see in clubs nowadays. They knew I was pretty dedicated so that gave me a real footing in comparison with other people who weren’t really interested in training but could get into the club anyway.”

Graham’s story serves as a reminder to any budding athlete that talent alone will not get you to the top.
“I think it’s got a lot to do with attitude.  Obviously you need the talent, but if you are not willing to work hard you won’t get anywhere. The one thing you will find is there are a lot of talented people out there.  A lot of people play for Scotland under-16s and under-18s, but they never make it.  You could think of any number of reasons why that might be, but I think it has a lot to do with how hard you work for it.”

There is no doubt Graham has come a long way.  A regular in the Great Britain setup, he played in the 2004 Athens Olympics, and has won over 118 combined caps for Scotland and GB, as well as picking up an array of domestic and European silverware at club level.  But becoming captain of his country hasn’t granted him the opportunity to relax.  Quite the opposite, in fact…

“I feel if I am the captain of the team I should be leading the way by being as fit as I possibly can be.  As you grow older you become more key in the team and you give it more ownership.  You are the one who will actually drive the team forward.  Whereas in the past you might have been working hard to get in the team, now you are working hard because you want to achieve certain things with the team.”

So, his drive never stops.  He hasn’t decided to relax now that he has made it to the top of the pile in Scotland.  Why?  Because Scotland is only the start.  There is a great honour in representing and captaining your country, but there is still plenty to do.  Graham’s next goal is to make Scotland a force on the world stage. 

“One of my goals is to qualify for the World Cup, which is something we really want to do. It’s probably a bigger achievement to play for GB as an individual, but as a team Scotland has have achieved so many brilliant things.  We have already played in our first Commonwealth Games in 2006 and we have also been in two European 'A' divisions.”

But even qualifying for the World Cup isn’t enough for the ultra-ambitious Moodie.  “If we qualify for the World Cup, once we are there it would be a different thing altogether. I would want to win every game!  But to qualify would be something special.”

So what needs to be done to take Scotland to the next level?  What is necessary to get to the World Cup?

“If you look at the Scotland team, our main issue at the moment is that we can be inconsistent; great one day and poor the next; and we have to sort that out. Even if we aren’t playing well, we need to make sure we get a good result and that’s our main focus.”

To do that, however, there needs to be a step up in standard, according to Moodie.  Having played for several seasons in England, Graham is more aware than most of the stark contrast in quality between the English League and its Scottish counterpart.

“I wouldn’t say the English league is a lot better than the Scottish league.  There isn’t a lot between the best teams in England and the best in Scotland.  But there is a massive difference between the lower teams in England than Scotland.

“I remember at my club in England (Cannock) we were top of the league and we needed to win a game to win the league. We were playing a team right down at the bottom who were fighting for relegation and we weren’t quite on our game that day and we ended up scraping through 6-5.   If that happened up here, even if you were still off your game, you would still hammer the bottom team by a ton of goals.

“The problem is a lot of people move from the lower clubs to the bigger clubs and that’s just the way it works, it’s almost like Scottish Football, which is a problem.”

However Moodie is optimistic that there is still enough quality in Scotland to ensure they can compete at the highest level.  In a truly resourceful Scottish manner, he manages to pick out the positives from the current situation.

“I have thought about this before.  You could look at all the negative things, like not playing as many hard games, but you need to look at it in a positive way. A lot of our best players are training together a lot of the time, so even if the games are not that high a standard, the training should still be high.

“I also think that because Scotland’s quite a small country, the majority of players live in the central belt, so we can train in Glasgow and Edinburgh every week which is something other countries don’t have.  You really just have to look at it from a different angle.”

Moodie’s un-moody viewpoint is an outlook that would do well to be adopted in many sporting circles.  Typically of the overall ethos of Scottish Hockey, he is making the best of what he has at his disposal.  Looking at situations as an opportunity, rather than a hindrance, is the kind of positive thinking that may create the esprit de corps that will lead Scotland, and Moodie, to the World Cup.

RO

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