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A 19-year-old Abertay University student is forging a career as an international hockey umpire.
Carly Edward from Dundee recently returned from the Czech Republic where she officiated an Under 21s tournament featuring eight top hockey nations.
She took charge of a relegation crunch match between Turkey and Poland, but wasn’t fazed when players’ tempers and emotions ran high, despite being younger than most on the field.
After leaving school in fifth year, the sport-mad teenager enrolled in the BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise course at Abertay.
Although still playing hockey for local side Grove Menzieshill, Carly has already accepted she won’t make it as an elite competitor, instead preferring to shift her focus behind the whistle.
Abertay is ideally placed to assist in this area, offering additional support for elite coaches and umpires in a similar way as it would for athletes.
“I got into umpiring because me club asked me to cover a development league game in the men’s competition and it came to be that I was running a game ever Sunday,” Carly said
“I’m now doing the National One Women’s league, which can be any league around Scotland, but I’m also involved in international matches.
“Every team takes games seriously, no matter what the level is, but when it comes to senior matches you have to be able to pick up the deliberate fouls.
“In my first senior game I had one of the players swear at me, so I told her that if she had a question then she could voice it appropriately.
“When players’ moods are up high an umpire needs to be calm. If you match them then you will have a problem and it could escalate.”
Carly will move into the third year of her course at Abertay this September and will continue to develop her umpiring skills.
She said: “Abertay is fantastic. I wanted to go into the broadest course possible to allow me to choose from different avenues for my future career.
“I really love sport and it’s great to be involved in sport every day.”
For more information on sports courses at Abertay visit https://www.abertay.ac.uk/discover/academic-schools/social-and-health-sciences/sport-and-exercise-sciences/