John Hurst

Biography Hurst born in St Albans, England, and educated at St Albans Grammar School and Furzedown College. He played club hockey for his home town St Albans Hockey Club in the Men's England Hockey League. He was a schoolteacher by trade at Durrants School in Watford. He made his England debut in March 1977 at the Rank Xerox hockey tournament at Lords and played at the 1978 Men's Hockey World Cup and the 1982 Men's Hockey World Cup.

In February 1985, Hurst was selected as the fourth goalkeeper for the England men's training squad at Bisham Abbey that remarkably contained three goalkeepers with the surname Taylor, Nick Taylor Steve Taylor and Ian Taylor. He made his Great Britain debut on against Malaysia at Luton. He was part of the silver medal winning Great Britain team that competed at the 1985 Men's Hockey Champions Trophy in Perth, Australia.

Hurst was named in the training squad for the 1988 Summer Olympics, but did not make the final cut having to settle for being a non-travelling reserve. during the 1990 Men's Hockey World Cup. He also managed the GB men's team to European bronze in 1991. He became a consultant for the national governing body and was involved with Team GB at six Olympic Games and five Commonwealth Games. He was the England goalkeeping performance coach from 1989 to 2011 and a GB and England coaching consultant until 2019.

Hi career highlight was being the manager of the women's gold winning team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. A position in which he retired from afterwards.