BASINGSTOKE Hockey Club's Miranda Smith picked up England Hockey's Lifetime Achievement Award last Saturday.

An integral member of the club, everyone knows Miranda, and she has been pivotal to Basingstoke Hockey for 47 years as a player, coach, official and committee member.

She is currently the Club President, providing strong leadership, guiding the committee to make the right decisions for the future stability of the club.

Miranda from Kempshott worked for eight years to get the club's second pitch working relentlessly with members to fundraise to make this possible and it is scheduled to be laid this summer.

She’s devoted so much time to developing future talent, who now play in national, regional and local leagues, and has tirelessly identified opportunities to get more people playing hockey, and for the last five years has organised Back to Hockey, with Walking Hockey coming this summer.

In that time the Ladies section has grown from four to seven teams.

The work Miranda does behind the scenes is invaluable to ensure it functions effectively week on week. On top of that, Basingstoke frequently wins awards for its hospitality to teams and officials, and this is all thanks to Miranda.

The Basingstoke Hockey Club's chair Danny Bowden paid his own tribute to the winner and said: "Miranda is a club legend, and I’m so happy she has been recognised on the national stage.

Miranda also represented England at over-65’s winning a gold medal and also won the Basingstoke and Deane Sports Awards Service to Sport in 2016.