Defender Tom Roche has been named as the England men’s box lacrosse team’s captain ahead of the 2024 World Lacrosse Box Championships later this month.
Taking place from 20-29 September, the World Championship will be Roche’s third consecutive major tournament as England captain after previously helping his side to Euros glory in 2022.
One of England’s longest serving players with 33 caps, Roche made his international debut in a World Championship defeat to Haudenosaunee in 2015.
In his nine years as an England international, he has played at four major tournaments (two World and two European Championships) helping his team to become the number one team in Europe and fourth in the world.
In 2023, Roche scored his first international goal for England in a 24-3 victory over Norway at the E-Box Invitational event.
During the 2024 World Championship, Roche is likely to become England’s most capped player and overtake goal-keeper Eliot Pugh (35 caps) who retired earlier this year.
Roche’s first foray into the world of lacrosse was at Mellor as a 10-year-old where he followed in the footsteps of his dad who was first team captain and won several trophies with the Greater Manchester club before taking up a coaching role that saw him nurture his young son.
After completing his journey at Mellor at the age of 18, Roche joined Loughborough University where he played for five years while studying.
Since 2014, Roche has played for London club, Spencer, where he has become an integral part of a team that has won three SEMLA Premier Division titles in the past 10 years.
For England, Roche was appointed as one of the assistant captains ahead of the 2017 European Championship in Turku, Finland where his side finished fifth.
Since then, Roche has been a part of the England leadership group and in 2019 he was voted to captain the team at that year’s World Championship, a role he has continued to do to this day.
With the 2024 World Lacrosse Box Championships just a matter of weeks away, Roche says he cannot wait to lead his team out as captain once again.
“Playing for my country was a dream of mine since I first found out that some of the Mellor first team players like Ben Macallister and Alistair Wallace represented England. I thought it was the coolest thing ever!
“I never dared to dream of captaining England, and it was a massively pleasant surprise to join the leadership group in 2017 for the first time.
“I am extremely proud to play alongside this group of players and to be a part of the box programme, and to wear the C on my jersey is the icing on the cake. I know that I'm not a player who scores lots of goals or does the fancy stuff, so being able to support my team-mates in a leadership position off the pitch, and by trying to do the dirty work on it, is my absolute pleasure.”
Roche will be assisted by Ben Page-Laycock, Luke Mills-Doig, Albert Whitehead, and Dan Watson who have been selected as assistant captains for the tournament.