England is the original home of Hockey Clubs, dating back to at least 1871. We say “at least” because new discoveries are being made all the time. Since that date, we estimate that approximately 4500 ladies’ and/or men’s hockey clubs have existed. Currently (2015) we have identified just over 4,000 of these and, interestingly, these are roughly 50:50 ladies’ and men’s. We would hope that your club is on the list; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so that we can check for you.
Our records contain varying degrees of information. For some clubs all we know is the name of the club extracted from historical records, usually County or AEWHA Handbooks or from magazines. Many early clubs pre-WW1 and WW2 no longer exist. Occasionally we find an article about a now defunct or merged club but for most there is nothing but a name.
For clubs that still exist today, or were active in the mid to late 20th century, we can often obtain some historical information from press cuttings and articles in magazines and programmes or from their website. Such information exists for less than 1,000 clubs, so if you have any information regarding your club please do send it to us.
The elite form of club record is where the Museum has a researched and printed history. This is often a book or booklet but sometimes just a pamphlet. We have less than 100 of these although we suspect that there are more out there. Often when we make contact with a club we are told that they produced a history for their 50th, 75th or even centenary, and “would the Museum like a copy?” The answer of course, is yes. If your club has produced a history that is not in our Library, please let us know.
We are currently working to be able to list all the clubs that we have records of on The Hockey Museum website. At that point, we hope clubs will check the information we have and then contact us to update or correct if there is more information available.
We are also compiling records on English Counties and the Territories/Divisions. As the ladies’ and men’s associations were all separate until recently, this gives us another 100 Associations that we are collating and researching. Many Counties and Regions also had separate Umpiring and Schoolboys Associations and these will also need to be compiled over time.
Use the online form to contact the Museum if you have any queries or possess any relevant information.