In July 2018 THM put on its most successful exhibition to date in the Fan Zone at the Vitality Hockey Women’s World Cup in London. The exhibition was in a large marquee and comprised six sections, each characterised by a key word reflecting the work of THM and the sport of hockey. These sections were:

Origins – examining hockey’s links to the women’s suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, complete with an arts and crafts table where children could make their own placards to champion a cause or team.

Respect – drawing on ideals of mutual respect and fair play exemplified by the elite athletes competing at the World Cup, this area of the exhibition brought together historical hockey stories and profiles of significant players from the competing nations as well as a special, guest-curated photography exhibition celebrating 50 years of Indian women’s hockey.

Inspire – an exploration of the inspirational hockey goalkeeper, from the iconic figures we are familiar with today resplendent in their body armour and helmets, to the canvas-padded and sweatshirt-wearing bravado of yesteryear.

Evolution – compared and contrasted the 2018 World Cup with the previous two women’s world tournaments held in the UK (Folkestone 1953 and Edinburgh 1975) using film footage, kit and equipment from the three different eras, and photography and statistics to illustrate the evolution of the organisation of such international events.

Family – an opportunity for visitors to be photographed alongside their family and friends with the newly designed World Cup trophy and to tell us about their friendships within hockey, aka ‘the hockey family’.

Success – presenting the progress and growth of THM in recent years by highlighting some of its successful projects and achievements, and in doing so making the case for financial support from the visiting public and encouraging sign ups to the Friends of The Hockey Museum fundraising initiative.

 
The World Cup exhibition, which was designed to appeal to audiences of all ages, included traditional object and text-panel displays alongside audio, video and interactive exhibits (listening posts, large screens and even a virtual reality headset) to bring the history of hockey to life in a varied and accessible manner.

The exhibition attracted over 10,000 visitors during the two weeks of the tournament – a record for the museum by some distance. The exposure generated and its promotion of THM’s important work to celebrate and preserve hockey’s history and heritage cannot be understated. And pleasingly, hockey history was noticeable throughout the event, from the TV commentary to the Walk of Stars. Our thanks to England Hockey for the opportunity and for their continued support.

So, we come to the end of another amazing year at The Hockey Museum.We’ve been in our new home at 13 High Street in Woking town centre for just over a year and from those early days when the whole collection arrived back from storage in 700+ boxes, we progressed to a position where we had audited and professionally stored all the different objects, books and archives, we designed and installed our first in-house exhibition and we opened our doors to the public. All this was guided by the expertise in our curatorial staff but was only realised because of the dedication and hard work of our fantastic volunteers. The awarding of Arts Council Full Museum Accreditation status in May was a real recognition of the professional standards we had now achieved.

July saw us open our largest exhibition yet as part of this summer’s Women’s World Cup in Fan Central at Olympic Park, London, and we broke more records when we welcomed over 10,000 visitors to our marquee across the two weeks.

And most recently, as the year was drawing to a close, we heard the news that we had been awarded the FIH President’s Award during the FIH 2018 Congress in Delhi.

With so much going on it is perhaps not surprising - though certainly regrettable - that we have been unable to find the time to create a comprehensive newsletter this side of Christmas. Please be assured that we will be creating one soon into the new year with additional detail about the aforementioned events and much more besides.

Such a great year and as a relatively small museum, THM relies on the support of its volunteers to keep the whole operation running. We are very lucky to have a tremendous team who have given so much of their time and expertise. THM Trustees would like to thank these individuals for their enthusiasm, humour and support over this past year. If you would like to get involved with our exciting project, please get in touch.

Best wishes for the coming year and we hope to be able to welcome many of you to the Museum sometime soon.

Katie Dodd, Chair of Trustees.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Worthing, clutching the Penguin HC
mascots at the inauguration of the glass panel on Worthing Pier.

The emergence of a piece of art relating to hockey is a pretty rare occurrence.

We have a good and growing collection of art at The Hockey Museum, but the glass panel depicted in our photograph is a piece of public art that has been installed on Worthing Pier. It was commissioned to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Penguins Hockey Club which was founded in 1948 by servicemen returning from WW2 who were in search of sport and recreation.

Although originally a men’s and subsequently also a ladies’ club, Penguins are probably better known up and down the country for their annual Mixed Hockey Festival over the early-May Bank Holiday weekend. Teams from all over the UK flocked to (quite often) sunny Worthing and at its height well over 100 teams participated. To its credit, it is now one of very few festivals that has survived, albeit much smaller these days.

Mike Smith, 2 October 2018

Come visit The Hockey Museum in Woking, Surrey on Sunday 30th of September 2018 between 10:00 and 16:00 to celebrate National Sporting Heritage Day.

The Hockey Museum will be showing Olympic gold medals won by Great Britain teams. Former England and Great Britain players will be attending throughout the day. You can show off your hockey skills in the street and explore the museum’s current exhibition which features additional Olympic items.

Join us to experience both the playing and the heritage of hockey. Don’t miss it!

About Sporting Heritage CIC:

Sporting Heritage CIC is a company which helps support the collection, preservation, access and research of sporting heritage in the UK and wider. This year will be the first time The Hockey Museum will celebrate National Sporting Heritage Day.

This nationwide event aims to raise awareness of sporting heritage within UK museums and encourage new and different audiences to engage with these collections.

For more about Sporting Heritage and National Sporting Heritage Day 2018, visit the Sporting Heritage website.

A sneak peek of one particularly colourful corner of the exhibition.

Following our recent move to new and larger premises in central Woking, THM has put on its first, in-house exhibition: The Hockey Museum First XI.

Today, hockey teams can field up of sixteen players (and eighteen in World Events): one goalkeeper, ten outfield players and five substitutes, but when ‘modern hockey’ began in the late 19th century, no substitutes were permitted and teams were only allowed eleven players. Over time, the best team in a club or at international level, became known as the ‘First Eleven’ or ‘1st XI’ – this is where this exhibition takes its name.

Conceived by our curatorial team to introduce visitors to the wealth and variety of material in the Museum’s collections, it comprises eleven objects that offer a brief but tantalising insight into hockey. They represent a truly global sport, covering all eras and levels, from playing to administration, from early club hockey to the modern day international game.

Above: installing the exhibition in 13 High Street, Woking. Below, right: the 'Wow Wall' that greets visitors to the Museum.

Each object is accompanied by supporting stories and additional display items that explore the wider narrative of each exhibit. Additionally, there is a range of other display items on the first floor. Visitors can also visit THM Library, which houses the largest collection of hockey books, magazines and associated publications in the world.

The exhibition is not just for adults. Here at THM we are passionate about engaging young people. You can discover hockey’s fascinating history alongside your child(ren) – look out for our Discovery Chest and the Mike Urator character (below) to lead you through the ‘children’s trail’. You can have lots of fun and there are interesting questions and activities for you to tackle together.

Come and visit the exhibition at 13 High Street, Woking, Surrey – our new home just 100 yards down from the station. We know it will whet your appetite to discover more about the fascinating history and heritage of hockey.

The magic of Wembley is the first publication from The Hockey Museum. It tells the story of how a Saturday in March saw thousands of schoolgirls and hockey supporters enjoy an annual day out to the famous stadium, to see England playing regular visitors such as Scotland, Ireland and Wales – as well as countries from all over the world.

For over forty years, the national stadium hosted the annual women's hockey international. It was a sporting event quite unlike any other: from the austere 1950s, with the players in thick skirts and heavy blouses and a St Trinians army of girls on the terraces in full school uniform, through the pop culture of the 1960s and '70s, when the players' skirts got shorter and the girls also sported allegience to Marc Bolan and Donny Osmond – the hot popstars of the time.

It was a cauldron of unforgettable, good-natured screaming loyalty, delivered in that combinaion of high-frequency and ferocious volume which only be produced by 60,000 schoolgirls.

The book shares personal memories from players, umpires and spectators to help give a sense of how special these days were. One section looks back to the day in 1981 when Her Majesty the Queen came and gave a particularly special royal seal to the occassion.

As social history mixes with nostalgia for a bygone era, see how things changed over the four decades in which the matches were played – the rules, the kit, the sticks – and the wonderful songs shared in the community singing before the match.

"Incredible original photography and images alongside extracts from programmes, accounts from players and spectators make this a very special trip down memory lane. For any fan of hockey, Wembley or women's sport, this is a book that simply must be read."
– Sally Munday, Chief Executive, England Hockey

Buying The Book

The magic of Wembley is on sale in the Museum shop at 13 High Street, Woking as well as available for purchase from the Museum exhibition during the Vitality Hockey Women's World Cup, 21 July-5 August 2018.

The book is also available via PayPal using the email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for £10.00 plus postage and packing (UK £3.00, Europe £7.00, rest of the world £9.00). To send a cheque, please contact the shop (using our contact form) for further details.

The Hockey Museum (THM) and The University of Wolverhampton are delighted to announce that the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) have approved funding for a collaborative PhD post to be jointly supervised by The University of Wolverhampton and THM. This award is part of the Sporting Heritage consortia initiative led by Sporting Heritage in partnership with the National Football Museum.

The title of the research project is An Oral History of England and Team GB Women’s International Hockey Representatives 1951-2016 and it aims to produce a collective biography of women who have represented England and Great Britain over the last 60 years. The work will specifically look at the women who played in the 41 Wembley international matches between 1951 and 1991, the Women’s Hockey World Cups between 1974 and 2014 and as part of Team GB at the Olympic Games from 1980 to 2016.

This is a unique opportunity to undertake a post-graduate project under the supervision of Professor Jean Williams, an acknowledged sports historian and heritage consultant now based at the University of Wolverhampton as well having full access to the expertise and extensive hockey archives held at The Hockey Museum, the world’s only hockey museum based in Woking. More details of the project can be found in an earlier THM news article promoting the award of the funding. Click here for that.

Anyone interested in applying should read the full advert on The University of Wolverhampton website here.

Closing date for applications is Friday 3 August 2018.

The Hockey Museum (THM) is celebrating after the announcement that Arts Council England has awarded it Full Museum Accreditation.

Accreditation is granted by the Arts Council England (ACE) to museums that meet the stringent requirements imposed by their Accreditation Standard. It enables museums to assess their current performance, and it supports them in planning and developing their services. The scheme is regarded as one of the most innovative and effective developments in the museum sector; it has led the way in raising museum standards in the UK and has been used as a model and source of inspiration for similar schemes overseas. THM joins 1,800 other museums participating in the scheme, working to manage its collections effectively for the enjoyment and benefit of its supporters and the wider public.

THM Chair of Trustees, Katie Dodd says, “The Trustees and volunteers were delighted to hear the great news that the THM had been awarded this status and it is a public recognition of all the work that has been put in by our curatorial team and volunteers to improve. The Museum has changed significantly since we embarked on this journey as we have undergone a major redevelopment project that has included the recent move to new premises in Woking and the opening of our first in-house exhibition from June. We are thrilled that the Arts Council has made this award and we look forward to using the Accreditation scheme as a tool for developing the Museum further in the coming years”.

For THM this is not the end of our ambitions. The award of Full Accreditation acknowledges that THM is on the right path but we must continue to improve and evolve in order to maintain our new status. We are continuing the work to catalogue and photograph our collections and make them more accessible to the community. We are currently open to the public on Wednesdays but will open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from June. There are plans for a series of Open Days over the coming months and, if there is sufficient demand following our relocation, the Museum may look to open on additional days in the future too.

Of course, none of this would be possible without our dedicated volunteers and supporters, who give their time and enthusiasm to make the THM what it is. A huge thank you goes out to them for helping to make this success happen. The generous support of England Hockey and the International Hockey Federation should also be acknowledged as we work with them to promote and celebrate the fascinating heritage of our sport. We are grateful, too, to Woking Borough Council for their continued support, to Liz May our Museum Mentor, the team at South East Museum Development Programme and to our many other partners who work with us in a range of ways.

If you would like to learn any more about what we do, visiting times, membership or volunteer opportunities, please continue to explore our website or contact THM through our online form.

It has recently been brought to our attention that the latest edition (January 2018) of Bluebell News, the publication documenting the happenings on the Bluebell Railway, featured an interesting hockey story.

On 27 August 2017, the Railway's Sheffield Park station was taken over for filming by the cast and crew of "Bollywood extravaganza" Gold. Gold tells the story of the India men's hockey team who won gold medals at the 1948 Olympics, the first time India won an Olympic gold medal as an independent nation. For one night only Sheffield Park in East Sussex became the Amritsar Junction in Lahore. You can read the report from the Bluebell News by clicking the PDF icon below.

The Hockey Museum (THM) has long been aware of the film in question and was consulted by the film's production team prior to shooting. THM's curatorial team offered advice on historical accuracy, specifically with regard to the hockey-playing scenes reflecting the game during that era (rules, equipment etc.). Given the Bluebell News's assertion that "it appears atmosphere is more important than tedious geographical and historical accuracy", in this instance refering to the type of train used in the shoot, we await the film's release to see how much of our advice was taken on board (no train pun intended). Whatever the level of historicity, we're sure that it will be a great film.

 Shane Smith, 5 February 2018