As we celebrate the International Day of Older Persons, we talk to one player whose grandparents have been there every step of the way.
Nikki Symmons has played just about every sport going – cricket, rugby, hockey, tennis – and she can trace her love and passion for sport right back to her earliest years and the influence of her grandparents.
Harry and Rhona Booker lived next door to Nikki when she was growing up and, while her mum Melanie went out to work, Nikki was busily hitting, throwing or dribbling a ball with Harry in the garden.
“Both my grandparents were really supportive of me and my sport,” said Nikki, “But it was my granddad who was the real inspiration. He played everything, cricket, rugby, tennis – and he was a long distance runner.”
Harry died three years ago, but his memory lives on through a picture on the wall at Nikki’s hockey club back in Ireland. Both Harry and Rhona were incredibly proud of everything that Nikki achieved in what has been a busy international sporting career. She is the most capped Irish female hockey player of all time, with more than 200 caps; she has represented her country at cricket; and she is a mean tennis player.
“They travelled all over the UK to watch me play,” says Nikki. “They weren’t the type to yell embarrassing things at me from the sideline – they left that to my mum – but Granddad would have a quiet word with me at half time or after the game. He would talk me through how the game was going and keep me grounded. His main words of advice, as a runner himself, were usually ‘keep running.”
Even now as a seasoned international player, Nikki looks back with nostalgia and affection on the days that her family lined the pitch. “It was great to see them all there. But even before I started playing, that was what sport was all about for my family. My mum played for three clubs including the Maids of the Mountain hockey club, where my grandmother also played.
While Mum played for Old Diocesan club, as a kid, I would be knocking a ball around a on the sideline with Stephen Butler (another Irish hockey international). The sideline was a great starting point for us kids to play the game.”
Looking back, Nikki sees that the presence of parents and grandparents on the sideline was vital to the functioning of a sports club. “Granddad was also secretary of Irish Rugby Union, but he did everything, including running on the pitch with a bucket and towel when someone was injured. At the hockey club it was the same, parents would give lifts, help with coaching, even umpire. It is how an amateur sport survives.”
Nikki’s grandmother Rhona played an even more important role. “She supplied us with the after-match cakes. She was known as the cake lady, even with the national team.”
Despite playing sport all over the world, Nikki’s abiding memory, even now, is of her grandparents, faces painted maroon and white, travelling on the train to Belfast to cheer on Loreto Hockey Club hockey club in the Irish clubs finals.
Harry and Rhona Booker supporting their granddaughter Nikki during her playing career
