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
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