ALAN Pardew, the former Reading FC manager, has made a good start to his new club.

He has taken over at Dutch club Ado Den Haag, who are battling against relegation, and in his first game in charge, his side defeated fellow strugglers RKC Waalwuk 2-0.

"This is a great opportunity for me to carry the flag for English coaches abroad," he told the Daily Mail.

READING hockey goalkeeper Amy Tennant will miss Great Britain's FIH Pro League fixtures in Australia and New Zealand in the first two weeks of February as she is still recovering from a concussion.

However, she has started to do some light training and, with pads and helmet on, she was kicking a few balls out at Bisham last week.

Her absence means the Sonning Lane club will have no representation among the 22 women and 24 men making the trip Down Under.

When picking up my Hockey Writers' Club's award I was in the company of Lisa Wilson.

Four years ago, she lost her 22-year-old son when he suffered a freak hockey accident which caused a brain haemorrhage.

If that wasn't tragic enough, weeks later her husband, Graham, a Daily Express journalist, died from a brain tumour after contracting sepsis.

Tom had signed up as a donor and his organs and tissue have helped to save the lives of 50 people.

His heart went to a man called Gordon in Newcastle and he is now fit and healthy. Through a stethoscope, Lisa has even heard her son's heart beating.

She admits having a dead person's body taken apart can make it distressing, but says hospitals "treat the body with so much care and respect."

My request is, please sign to become an organ donor.

SONNING hockey player Carol John swapped her stick for a football referee assistant's flag this week.

She was on the line for the Hellenic League match between Binfield and Flackwell Heath and a spectator tweeted: 'stood behind her all game, faultless, well done.'