The rules of hockey can be confusing – especially when club level umpires often don’t seem to understand them either! I’ve just had the frustrating experience of confusing umpiring at summer league. I’m not an umpire so I may have this wrong (do please correct me in comments if you know the correct ruling) – however, most of us figured we were robbed of a goal.
Our attacker scored a clean top of the D goal in a seven-a-side match. Her feet were mostly outside the D but the ball was definitely inside. We figured it should be a goal, but the umpire didn’t allow it because she was outside the D.
Admittedly, summer league umpires are volunteers, often learning (although I have it on authority this one was supposedly fully experienced). Harumph! We lost the match one nil because our disallowed goal meant we didn’t get a draw.
England Hockey has a reference site for anybody wanting to brush up on the rules.
http://rules.englandhockey.co.uk/
You can study the rules and watch videos showing how they might be applied during play. There’s also an online test to check your knowledge.
Pure Hockey