Last Wednesday evening, members of Southend Hockey Club — past and present — came together for a curry and a beer to remember our friend Phil Harvey, Phil loved his hockey, but he also loved the social side of the club just as much. A curry and a beer felt like the perfect way to honour him — sharing stories, reminiscing about old times, catching up with friends, and raising a glass to absent friends

A huge thank you to Mel Lamb for organising the evening and to everyone who came along to make it such a special night.

Phil’s brothers Mark & Vince kindly shared a few words, to give those who didn’t know Phil an insight into his legacy at Southend Hockey Club.

See below for the full message:

This is a message from Mark & Vince Harvey brothers of Phil, better known as Philthy, in whose memory you are holding this club supper.

Firstly, can we wish everyone here a warm welcome to the Phil Harvey club supper and hope you have a great evening. For those of you who remember Philthy we’re sure you have your own stories to tell about what the club meant to him and him to the club. But for those who didn’t know him let us provide some background as to why you’re holding a club supper in his honour.

Just a little bit of history first off the Harvey family’s involvement with the club. Over a number of years three of us played for the club at all levels and held various offices within the club and our parents provided the post-match meals for a number of years.

Whilst two of us stopped playing for the club a good few years ago, Phil continued to play and umpire until his untimely passing in 2017. He first started playing for the club at 15 in the mens 5th team and played for every XI over the coming years. In later years he also umpired nearly every week as well as playing and would quite often finish playing one game get on his motorbike and go to wherever he was needed to umpire.

He also held various offices within the club including club captain and bulletin secretary, which for those of you too young to remember hockey before everything was organised by social media, chat groups and email was the fortnightly production of a paper newsletter telling everyone what was happening in the club and which team they were playing in and where the game was.

The social side of the club was also very important to him, and we feel he sometimes saw it as his personal mission to keep the bar profits coming in. We have so many memoires of him at the club, from the time our Dad, who’d been talked in to taking some of the players to an away game at Harlow, found him in the clubhouse having a pint with the opposition after the under 18’s game (he was 16 at the time), to the clubs 70th anniversary annual dinner when he was wondering around with what we thought was a pint of water, but turned out to be a pint of gin and tonic.

In short, he would do whatever he could to support the club and made many good friends along the way. He knew that the club doesn’t just need players it needs people willing to organise the teams and the running of the operational side of the club, umpires without whom the games can’t be played and it needs people to support the social side, which is just as important as playing as it raises the funds which allows the club to exist and everyone get to know other members of the club not just those who they play with on a Saturday.

Once again have a great night, remember Philthy and if you didn’t know him just remember it’s not just about the playing there’s a whole lot more to the club and try to do as he did and support the non-playing side of the club as much as you can.

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SAVE THE DATE: 9th December 2026