For­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al hock­ey stand­out, Eng­land-based Kwand­wane Browne like many pro­fes­sion­al sports­men world­wide have been try­ing their best to keep fit and fo­cus as the world con­tin­ues to grap­ple with the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) virus pan­dem­ic.

The 42-year-old Browne is a leg­end of the sport on two con­ti­nents, Eu­rope and Pan Amer­i­can and is well known as both a play­er and coach.

He cur­rent­ly coach­es one of the top teams in Eng­land, Hamp­stead and West­min­ster, and is al­so part of the Eng­land and Great Britain men’s Olympic coach­ing staff hav­ing re­tired from the "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" in 2019 af­ter the last Pan Amer­i­can Games, the 18th edi­tion in Li­ma, Pe­ru, hav­ing fea­tured in more than 325 match­es for the na­tion­al, in­door and out­door.

Be­fore the sus­pen­sion of the hock­ey sea­son at the club lev­el in Eng­land as well as with their na­tion­al team, Browne was en­joy­ing a rel­a­tive­ly pro­duc­tive and busy sea­son on both lev­els with the men beat­ing Malaysia 5-2 and 4-1 last No­vem­ber to qual­i­fy for Tokyo af­ter dis­ap­point­ing re­sults in re­cent tour­na­ments.

How­ev­er, fur­ther to the British Gov­ern­ment and Pub­lic Health Eng­land’s guid­ance around ma­jor sports events and in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el re­stric­tions, re­gret­tably FIH Hock­ey Pro League games against Chi­na, In­dia, and Ar­genti­na as well a planned South Africa train­ing tour was can­celled while re­main­ing match­es against USA and Spain May 23/24 and Ger­many on June 13/14 will be made no lat­er than April 15.

Be­sides, Great Britain's away match­es against the Nether­lands on April 28 and 29 have been post­poned.

He said that things have been at a stand­still with re­gards to hock­ey and sport in gen­er­al in Eu­rope as the rest of the world.

He said, "In Eng­land, we stopped the sea­son three weeks ago, and our Great Britain se­nior men's hock­ey team was sup­posed to go to South Africa on March 15 for some warm weath­er train­ing in prepa­ra­tion for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

"But due to the COVID-19 virus, the train­ing camp had to be can­celled while as we all know now the Tokyo Olympic Games which was to be­gin in late-Ju­ly will now oc­cur in 2021.

"So with those de­vel­op­ments, the na­tion­al pro­grammes and Eng­land Hock­ey Leagues were all stopped at that time due to the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) world­wide pan­dem­ic.

For­tu­nate­ly for Browne who has won the T&T Hock­ey Board "Play­er of the Year” award nine times along with six Pan Amer­i­can Elite Team mem­ber­ship, the Eng­land Hock­ey League Pre­mier Di­vi­sion was able to fin­ish the Pre­mier League reg­u­lar-sea­son sched­ule of 18 match­es.

He added, "My club Hamp­stead & West­min­ster, end­ed in the sec­ond spot with 41 points, six be­hind Sur­biton to qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals be­fore the tour­na­ment was sus­pend­ed.

Browne said that while the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion has reached the semi­fi­nal stage, the same can­not be said for some of the con­fer­ence leagues who are yet to com­plete their reg­u­lar sea­sons.

Browne who has sev­er­al oth­er tasks as a coach with St Lawrence Col­lege and Hamp­stead and West­min­ster said the clubs are still await­ing the fi­nal de­ci­sion on what will hap­pen with the rest of the sea­son.

"We are not sure whether it will con­tin­ue once the pan­dem­ic is brought un­der con­trol or if it will be can­celled be­cause, on com­ple­tion of the league for­mat, the play­offs were ex­pect­ed to fol­low.

"But all com­pe­ti­tions have been sus­pend­ed and there are a few things still to be de­cid­ed in terms of pro­mo­tion and rel­e­ga­tion play­offs, and they haven't made a de­ci­sion on that as yet."

"The pro­mo­tion and rel­e­ga­tion of teams in Eng­land are not that straight for­ward, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause the teams in the north has one more round of match­es left to play to com­plete the reg­u­lar sea­son with the top two clubs Durham and Bow­don, in a vir­tu­al top-of-the-ta­ble-clash to de­ter­mine the reg­u­lar-sea­son win­ners.

He said, "Al­so, the league al­so needs to de­ter­mine the top two teams to rep­re­sent Eng­land in the Eu­ro­pean Hock­ey League (EHL). For me, it's still rel­a­tive­ly quite busy. I'm do­ing a lot of meet­ings on­line, and do­ing a lot more at home and clean­ing up my hard-dri­ves which are filled with hock­ey stuff as you could imag­ine while club-wise I am al­so try­ing to stay in touch with the play­ers as much as I can. Due to the lock­down, we can't do much hock­ey work, and it's a time for me to make sure that every­one and their fam­i­lies are safe with re­gards to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic."

He added, "Gen­er­al­ly at home, it's me and my two boys and my mom who came over from the USA to help me look af­ter them when I am away with Great Britain hock­ey teams, so it's just four of us and we are pret­ty lucky in that there are lots of pri­vate fields close to where we live so we can get a chance to go out­side at times, do some run­ning if we want too, while the boys al­so have quite a bit of en­ter­tain­ment at home as well as school work which has them busy.

"The days are go­ing by quick­ly as well and for me, it pro­vides a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to do some work with friends and fam­i­ly, as we are still not sure when the sea­son is go­ing to start back.

Browne, a Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty (LMU) grad­u­ate al­so not­ed that an­oth­er for­mer T&T stand-out Dil­let Gilkes who coach­es Con­fer­ence East club St Al­bans is al­so in good spir­its and do­ing a good job on the coach­ing sea­son at the club which fea­tures T&T in­ter­na­tion­als, Mar­cano broth­ers, Tariq and Teague.

"Teague is the joint top scor­er in the Con­fer­ence East with 18 goals and his team their club is just out­side the play­off pic­ture with one match left to play," end­ed Browne.