They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that would certainly appear to be the case with Harvey Freer and hockey.

The soon-to-be 51-year-old loves his hockey – he’s very involved with Stroud which are the club just up the road from him – and yet it is not a sport he has been involved in all his life by any means.

He played a bit at school and then stopped playing for well over 10 years. He then joined a club in Hertford before landing up in the Stroud Valley via, believe it or not, Peru some 12 years ago.

Even then he only really rediscovered his love for hockey four years ago.

As is so often the case, the passion was rekindled by his children and he’s jolly pleased it was, because he’s now a committed member of the go-ahead club which are thriving at all levels of the games.

All four of Harvey’s children – Tom, 20, Joe, 18, Eleanor, 16, and 10-year-old Jacob – play the sport as does his wife Sian, who like her husband is a teacher and also had a break from the game in her 20s after playing at school.

These days it’s nigh on impossible to turn up to a training session or matchday involving Stroud Hockey Club and not to see a Freer involved somewhere along the line – although Tom, a central midfielder or forward, now spends much of his time playing for the 1st XI at Southampton University.

Harvey, originally from Ross-on-Wye, enjoyed his hockey in Hertford where he played with Sian, and Sian, from Kent, continued to play the sport even when they left this country to take up teaching jobs in Peru.

“We were there for three years,” said Harvey. “Hockey is strong in Argentina but not in Peru. We were based in Lima and bizarrely there was a hockey club very close to us – I think it was the only hockey club in Peru!”

It may have been the only club in Peru but the person who ran the ladies’ team was very keen, managed to arrange some fixtures and Sian had a ball playing the sport she loves during her time in South America.

So what about Harvey? What did he do?

“I got drawn into restarting a late rugby career at the age of 32,” he chuckled. “There were only seven teams in Peru and six of them were in Lima.

“It was a great time to be involved in rugby because while we were there Peru won their first international and also played in their first World Cup qualifier.”

That was a level or two above Harvey of course who started out on the wing and then moved in one to outside centre.

“Then I started not to bounce,” he laughed. “It started to hurt a bit.”

After three years in the capital of Peru, the tiny town of Nailsworth four miles south of Stroud and with a population of less than 6,000 would seem an unlikely destination, but that’s where the Freers headed with their three oldest children – including Eleanor who was born in Peru – in the mid-noughties.

Sian may have had a job, three children (and a husband!) to look after but she was pretty soon knocking on the door at Stroud Hockey Club, and it wasn’t long before their children were playing for the club’s Badgers and Vixens.

While Sian, a left-back or left-sided midfielder, was soon running around the astroturf on hockey pitches all over Gloucestershire and beyond, Harvey was content to take a watching brief while his kids were put through their paces in the club’s junior set-up.

And he was impressed by what he was seeing.

“Stroud have a really healthy Badgers and Vixens,” he said. “It’s amazing to see them all training on a Tuesday evening. The pitches are full of kids and there’s a great spirit. Everyone enjoys their hockey and it’s an amazing set-up.

“The Badgers and Vixens are so supportive of the kids’ development. There’s an adult on the pitch with them, coaching them as they play. They help them with their positioning and are very, very supportive.”

With his teaching background and knowledge of hockey, that on-the-field role was tailor-made for Harvey of course and four years ago he could resist no more, so he picked up a stick for the first time in about 10 years and became an on-field player again.

“I was the oldest Badger on the pitch,” he said. “I was relearning the game and making loads of mistakes. I was doing all the drills before games and fluffing them all but the club were really supportive.”

He may have been fluffing his lines but those that mattered at the club could clearly see ‘potential’ in the 40-something, so they asked him to play for the 3rds.

“This is my fifth season in the 3rds,” he said, “I play right-back and I’ll always be in the 3rds. We’ve got this mix of emerging talent and ageing talent with me in the middle. I just love it.”

He certainly does and while his two boys play to a much higher standard – Joe, a centre-back, has graduated into the Stroud’s 1st XI this season – Harvey has had the pleasure of playing in the same team as both of them on the odd occasions, experiences he wouldn’t swap for anything.

Eleanor, a pupil at Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School, is doing pretty well too and is settling in on a left side attacking role for the ladies’ 2nd XI, while young Jacob is now following in his family’s footsteps and starting out on his hockey journey.

That’s something that has pleased dad because not so long ago Jacob had eyes only for football. Now when Jacob looks up during one of his hockey training sessions with the Badgers, the chances are that one of the first people he will see is his dad, so he doesn’t have far to go for advice.

Not that Harvey is content with just coaching and playing because he has also got into umpiring.

“The club need umpires,” he said. “We need two umpires for every game.”

So what’s it like when he umpires his children?

“You have to separate yourself away from that,” he said. “You’re an umpire, not a spectator. Every player is anonymous.

“The great thing about hockey is that when the umpire blows the whistle everyone respects it.”

And what about after the game, do his children question some of the decisions he made?

“Yes, sometimes,” he laughed, “but the umpire is still right!”