EIHL captain gets testimonial

Jonathan Phillips  joined the Steelers in 2006 from Cardiff, the only summer signing of then head coach Dave Whistle. He became Captain the season after taking over from Shawn Maltby. Phillips was thrown the Captains armband at an early age, just 24 when injuries forced the then coach Dave Matsos to find a new leader. He is the most successful Steelers' captain of all time. It would take the Steelers two seasons under Phillips leadership to lift their first trophy, the play off success against Coventry Blaze in the 2008 final. He is the only captain to lift the league title four times, the most successful captain in the clubs history with 6 league and play off championships under his wings.

The Great Britain international has clocked up a total of 1055 competitive games for various teams including making 77 appearances for the national side, many as captain.

The unassuming Welshman began his career with Cardiff Devils, had a stint at Milton Keynes Kings before making Sheffield his home after swapping the Welsh valleys for the industrial North of England in 2006.

He has made 640 appearances for Sheffield Steelers and is the most prolific captain in terms of achieving honours.

He gained his first league title in 2008-2009 and has since followed that with three more, in 2010-2011 and back to back titles in 2015 and 2016. To add to them he has three play off championships to his name the last one being in 2014.

Last Sunday he became one of the few players in the EIHL to have achieved over 800 appearances, 626 of those for Sheffield Steelers. In that time he has scored 452 points. 

On Tuesday night he hosted a testimonial game. For that game  Jason Hewitt and Mark Thomas  lined up alongside the club’s all-time living legend Ron Shudra. Add Phillips to that list and you have the club’s four longest-serving players. There were other former Steelers players there too, goalscoring duo Joey Talbot and Jeff Legue as well as rugged defenceman Steve munn.

Speaking to a local newspaper Phillips said, “To be honest I’ve been kind of shocked by the response from people over my testimonial season because I’m not really on social media that much and stuff like that, so it was interesting to see how it went. But it’s been very humbling to see how much support there is out there ... I’ll have to try and not let it go to my head!

When we first came to Sheffield, Matty (former head coach, Dave Matsos) drove into us that we were trying to start something special and that is definitely something that he certainly did. He started something which almost couldn’t be stopped for a while and it was something that brought in three trophies in two seasons

Ben Simon came in for a year and carried that on, as did G (Gerad Adams) and now Thommo (Paul Thompson) and, definitely, over the years I don’t think the words ‘enjoying myself’ really do it justice because I’ve had the time of my life in Sheffield. Having been here so long is definitely an achievement I’m proud of. To play for a club like Sheffield so long is fantastic. It’s the biggest club in the country.”

Johnathan Phillips in video form

 

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