Curro teacher Africa’s first female to umpire indoor hockey world cup
16 February 2023Lyndal Robertson, a teacher from Curro Edenvale, was selected to be Africa’s first ever female to umpire at FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup. The tournament took place from 5 to 11 February 2023 in Pretoria and brought together the best hockey players from across the globe.
Lyndal began playing hockey at a young age and was awarded a hockey and tennis scholarship at Rhodes University. She there represented the university at first-team level for hockey, squash, tennis, water polo and badminton. However, her passion for coaching, umpiring and officiating hockey later only blossomed after she became a sports administrator and sports stooge at Victoria Girls High School in Grahamstown whilst studying for her PGCE.
She has since coached and umpired several different hockey teams across the country and as far afield as Croatia. She has also completed her Master’s in Education (Health, Recreation and Physical Education) in America and received her FIH Indoor Umpiring badge from the International Hockey Federation in 2018 before joining Curro Edenvale as a teacher and sports advisor.
From the moment the school opened in 2019, Lyndal has been instrumental in helping grow their hockey fundamentals and last year helped the girls team compete in the Eastern Gauteng Hockey League last year.
Her fantastic selection comes on the back of three consecutive disappointments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, she was selected to attend the All-Africa games in Namibia and was also nominated to attend the World Cup Hockey Tournament in Belgium in 2021 and 2022. but all three were unfortunately postponed. With South Africa hosting the 2023 World Cup, she is both humbled and grateful for the opportunity to represent not only her country, but the African continent.
