The game of hockey started at St John’s in 1931, with a total of 76 pupils participating.  Currently St John’s College has 17 teams participating in the boys’ school league. Five open teams, three u/16 teams, four u/15 teams and five u/14 teams which presents around 220 players. This number of boys participating in the sport exceeds that of most of our rival schools.

We are very fortunate to have a synthetic turf field as well as a grass field.
Hockey is run during the winter season (Trinity term) and practices take place on  Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. We regularly compete against other schools with matches being played on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
St John’s participates in all of the top hockey festivals in and around the country.
 
St John’s is regularly one of the main contenders for the annual Aitken & Boden tournament which consists of an open and U15 section. This tournament is regarded as the largest schoolboy tournament in S.A. with 48 schools in the open section and 32 in the U15 section.  St John’s has consistently finished in the top four in both these divisions.

We are also very fortunate to have Alan Lion-Cachet as our master in charge of hockey. As a player he had a very successful career despite only starting to play the game during his 4th year at university. He attained senior men’s provincial colours for three different provincial teams at both indoor and field hockey. He was selected to the S.A National training squad but unfortunately was not able to be selected due to isolation.

Apart from hockey Alan also achieved senior men’s provincial colours in Athletics as well as Springbok colours for yacht racing and has sailed in 4 world championship regattas.

Alan has coached schoolboy hockey at 1st Team level for the past 18 years. He continues to be part of the Gauteng schoolboy’s hockey committee and has managed and coached the Gauteng schoolboys U18A Provincial team on numerous occasions. Alan has also been convener of selectors for the province and requested to select at U18 National level. He is also a qualified umpire.
While managing all the hockey affairs at St John’s he is also the  co-ordinator of  the entire Aitken and Boden tournament and continues to develop at grass roots level with a very successful mini hockey academy.

Alan Lion-Cachet
Director of Sport and Hockey Coach