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Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000. Born in Ruislip, Middlesex on
August 27th 1940, Vic Batchelder quickly became a resident of
the Worcestershire town of Kidderminster, to where his family moved only
months after his birth. Vic Batchelder was to become one
of, if not the leading ice hockey writer, noted for ‘telling it as it
is and was,’ and never afraid to voice an opinion even if at times
ruffling the feathers of some among the games administration. He became
a journalist late in life following the return of the sport to
Nottingham in 1980, prior to that, Vic spent ten years as a British
Transport Police officer, mostly as a dog handler. He then handled an
agency for a credit company in Derby, where along with wife Yvonne and
their three children, he had moved some twelve years earlier. Ironically, ice hockey was not
his first sporting love. That was very definitely soccer, which he
played first locally in Kidderminster and then more latterly in and for
the Midland Police League after having become enamoured with
Wolverhampton Wanderers at the age of seven. That affair remained a
lifelong passion as, courtesy of a season ticket, he was a regular at
Molyneux, home of Wolves. Retiring from playing at 29, he
turned to officiating and progressed rapidly to become a linesman on the
old Football Combination, from where he treasured memories of treading
such hallowed turf as, among others, Highbury and White Hart Lane, the
homes respectively of London sides Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.
However, ever the realist and by then in his thirties, he recognised
Football League status was beyond reach, in terms of years available at
least, and turned instead to the administration of the game. From there it was an easy
progression to a similar responsibility in ice hockey, becoming
Assistant Secretary of the old Inter City League, after one season
watching the reborn Nottingham Panthers. Having spent much of that one
season complaining at the lack of an informed news source for hockey
fans, he was primarily charged with filling that gap. Hence, the September 1981 birth
of Ice Hockey News Review. From a first issue comprising a single A4
sheet, photo reduced and folded to produce four A5 pages intended as an
insert in ICL club programmes, it quickly became a stand alone
publication, growing through the following three seasons to where it was
twelve A5 pages crammed with minute print, but having an ever-growing
readership. October 1984 saw IHNR graduate
to an A4 magazine format – only for the new printers to go bust after
two issues. Nevertheless, a new printing house was found, the
fortnightly schedule maintained without the loss of an issue, and the
product continued to grow and improve with the gradual introduction of
colour, though still with its ‘editorial office’ in the front room
of a house in Derby. During the summer of 1986,
Vic’s credit company employer was taken over, the new owners
unreasonably requiring him to work basically eight hours a day at least
five days a week - for them. The result was the News Review became the
Batchelder family’s main source of employment, gaining its own offices
in the Nottingham suburb of Stapleford from where it continued to be
editorially produced until ill health forced Vic to sell it in September
1999. The new owners of the magazine
instantly transformed it into a weekly publication to which he continued
to contribute. Interestingly, his freedom from an editor’s need to be
seen as totally neutral and without bias, allowed him to emerge from the
closet and admit to being an ardent and avid Panthers supporter. Never lost for words, in
addition to the IHNR, Vic Batchelder covered the sport for The Guardian
from the late eighties, aiding that newspapers reputation as probably
the best national daily for coverage of ice hockey. He has also had
articles published in several ‘in house’ magazines, countless
championship and cup final programmes, while also counting the Toronto
Star amongst past paymasters. Vic Batchelder was a man of
principle and if that meant speaking his mind, he was never afraid to do
so. His integrity and forthrightness won him as many friends as it did
adversaries, but it also won him an enormous amount of respect from all
quarters. Vic Batchelder was a fighter
too – not only in the cause of true British ice hockey but against
illness. Having been diagnosed with cancer, Vic refused to submit to the
illness and amazed his doctors with the tenacity and length of his fight
against the odds. His passing away on October 11th, 2001 was a sad day for many people involved in ice hockey in Britain. The sport lost a great fan and arguably its greatest critic, and everyone who knew Vic lost a true and valued friend. Compiled by Andy Costigan – May 2000, amended October 2001 |
