Paul Svehlik

Born in England to Czech parents, Pavel Svehlik, known as Paul, lived in Nigeria as a youngster, where his father worked. Paul returned to England in 1954 to attend preparatory school, and then attended The Leys Public school in Cambridge between 1960-65 before going to Fitzwilliam College at CambridgeUniversity. An all-round sportsman, Svehlik played hockey, tennis, and cricket for Leys, and after going to Cambridge won the first of three hockey Blues in 1967. He was captain of the side in his last year, when he also made his England début.

Svehlik played his club hockey with Beckenham and was a Kent county player. He went on to captain his country and win a then-record 66 England caps. He played in the 1972 Olympic tournament but sustained a bad injury in the training match against Pakistan in München, which resulted in him needing five stitches to a badly cut head.

Svehlik was a member of the England team at the 1973 and 1975 editions of the World Cup and, in the latter year, scored three goals in the 5-4 extra-time win over Spain. He became only the second England player to achieve this feat after Brian Dusbury, who scored three against Ghana the day before. As at the end of the 2023 World Cup, Svehlik is still the last England player to score a World Cup hat-trick.

Also a good standard golfer, Svehlik was appointed secretary of the Cooden Beach Golf Club, East Sussex, in 1999. In 1971 he represented Leys in the annual prestigiious Halford-Hewitt Cup for ex-Public Schoolboy golfers, and Svehlik was one of two England captains in the Leys team that year, the other being England cricket captain Freddie Brown.

In the 1970s, Svehlik became involved in lawn tennis administration and was the European director of the ATP, and later became assistant executive director of the Men´s International Professional Tennis Council, running their Paris office. He was also one of the ATP tournament organisers with former players Ross Case and Stan Smith. Svehlik left to set up his own business in 1990 and lived in Portugal for a while, where he established the Estoril Open tennis tournament. He was back at the Olympics in 2004 as head of the boxers´ delegation at the Athens Games.