The Hockey Museum has had its first sight of a 1920 Olympic gold medal. It was won by Harry Haslam, the Great Britain goalkeeper at the Antwerp Games, and has been loaned to the Museum, together with other memorabilia, by Haslam’s family.
It will be displayed at a private presentation at the Museum on 5 September, when members of Haslam’s family will receive his Great Britain honours cap. Saturday is the centenary of the final day of the 1920 Olympic hockey tournament, played as a round robin event, and the centenary of the awarding of gold medals to the GB team. GB had beaten Denmark (5-1), hosts Belgium (12-1) and were awarded a walkover in their final game against France to secure gold. The official launch and presentation of honours caps to the Great Britain teams, most of whom will be going to the Tokyo Olympics, will be made at a Pro League weekend next May.
Besides the gold medal, the memorabilia includes an oil painting of Haslam, an Antwerp participation medal and civilian medals.
The Antwerp medal (as described below on the Olympics website) is of gold gilt, unlike the 1908 London Olympic gold medal held on loan by The Hockey Museum, and looks more like silver. It is believed less expensive metal was used because money was still scarce so soon after World War One.
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| Harry Haslam’s gold medal from the Antwerp Olympic Games of 1920. Font: left / Obverse: right |
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The 1920 Antwerp Olympic Medal is described on the official Olympic website thus:
"On the obverse, a tall, naked athlete, holding in his left hand a palm leaf and a laurel crown, symbols of victory. Behind him, the figure of the Renommée playing the trumpet. In the background, a frieze with a Greek motif with the inscription "VII OLYMPIADE" underneath.
On the reverse, the Antwerp monument, commemorating the legend of Brabo throwing into the Scheldt the hand of the giant Druoon Antigoon, who had been terrorizing the river. In the background, the cathedral and port of Antwerp. In the top half, the inscription “ ANVERS MCMXX ”.
The legend says that in Antiquity, this cruel giant forced all vessels on the river to pay a toll. If the captain refused to pay, he cut off his hand. The giant spread terror amongst the sailors for many long years, until the day he met Silvius Brabo. This courageous Roman soldier dared to take on the giant and succeeded in killing him. As revenge for his victims, he cut off the giant's hand and threw it into the river. This is where the name of the city comes from – “Antwerp" means "thrown hand."
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Harry Haslam’s participation medal from the Antwerp Olympic Games of 1920. Font: left / Obverse: right |
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Great Britain’s gold medal at the 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games came under strange circumstances, allegedly arising from a misguided piece of skulduggery.
Only four nations competed at these Games and, after round robin matches, the gold medal was to be decided by the last game between Great Britain and France.
The Ilford Recorder in an article on the GB goalkeeper Harry Haslam, whose club was Ilford HC, on July 18 1996 described the affair thus:
“Great Britain’s opponents invited our lads out on the town – with the intention of drinking them legless. The French found their opponents were made of sterner stuff than themselves in the hangover league and the inebriated opposition actually conceded the next day’s final following their mutual night out on the town.”
Another source, also penned many decades later, refers to an epidemic near the French team’s accommodation. This may of course be a tactful way of suggesting the French team were the worse for wear, or it could be sincere.
The French finished last after losing their other two games.
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| An informal photograph of the Great Britain hockey team at the Antwerp Olympic Games of 1920. |
Saturday 5 September 2020 is the centenary of Great Britain’s gold medal win at the 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games and this anniversary is being marked by a very special event at The Hockey Museum in Woking on Centenary Day.
Extensive research by a group of volunteers at The Hockey Museum over the last five years on Great Britain’s (GB) player history has produced a record of 366 men and 210 women who have represented GB since the first official international matches. The research concluded that the 1920 team was the first to represent Britain and Harry Haslam, as the goalkeeper, is designated as men’s player No. 1 and his family will receive his GB cap at a presentation ceremony at the Museum on the Centenary Day.
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| Great Britain Men's Hockey Team (not England as written), Antwerp Olympic Games 1920. Harry Haslam is standing furthest left in his goalkeeping leg guards. Image courtesy of Marlborough College. |
Each of the other players, including those no longer alive and former living internationals, will receive their cap during the coming year, the deceased via their families. It is planned that current GB central training squad members will receive theirs during Great Britain’s home FIH Pro League games next May.
At the Antwerp Games, where only four nations competed, GB’s route to the gold medal took a late controversial final turn. After victories over Denmark (5-1) and Belgium (12-1) the gold medal was secured by a walkover against France.
Born in Aston, Birmingham in 1883, Harry Haslam first played hockey in the Midlands including representing Worchestershire before moving to Essex in the early part of the 20th century. After two seasons with the Guildhall club he moved to Essex where he joined Ilford HC, staying with them for 18 years until returning to Guildhall in 1929.
He won his county cap for Essex in 1911 and was appointed honorary secretary in the same year. He went on to captain the county and never missed a game for them for over 12 years from his debut. He also represented the East and in 1920 made his England debut aged 37.
He won nine international caps, seven for England and two for GB (Antwerp Olympic Games), the last against Scotland in March 1921.
His style of play was apparently on a par with his ability to hold his drink and he was noted for his eccentricity on the pitch. The Ilford Recorder in an article on a game in December 1912 reported that Haslam “made several brilliant saves but, for some unaccountable reason, accompanied each effort with a ‘whoop’ like a proverbial scalp hunter.”
During his playing career he was a hockey correspondent for the Chelmsford Chronicle and then the national News Chronicle as well as the regular hockey expert on BBC Radio. In 1922 his book How to Play Hockey was published.
He retired from playing hockey at the age of 48 in 1932 but continued to be active within the game in various administrative roles and as a prominent umpire.
During World War One Haslam served as a Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Special Constabulary and in 1920 he received an OBE for his services to the Constabulary.
He died at home on his 72nd birthday.
Download the press release by clicking the PDF icon below.
Contact details can be found therein.
One of our wonderful volunteers Mark Evans has recently had an article published as a chapter in Playing Pasts, the online magazine for sport and leisure history. “Women’s League Hockey and its Early Development” forms one of several chapters on the history of different sports, so anyone interested in sports history might find the book interesting – and it’s free to read.
Needless to say, we’re delighted for Mark. It is deserved recognition of his dedication to his research and his enthusiasm for volunteering with us.
Click here to access the magazine.
Mark says:
"My research interest in women's leagues arose from an initial enquiry from The Hockey Museum in relation to the 'English Cup'. Two photographs were sent to the museum asking for information about the Cup and I began to look into its history and the teams that played in the competition.
The competition was run by the English Ladies Hockey Leagues Association (ELHLA) which looked after the interests of the women's hockey leagues in the North of England and particularly in the South Lancashire area. I began to look into the history of women's league hockey which was thought to be a small part of the hockey scene because competitive hockey was frowned upon and had been largely banned, especially in the South. However, we now know that league hockey was more important than was initially thought and to date I have found evidence for around 30 leagues in England. Many of the teams in the leagues were church based, works based or school based with past pupils wanting to continue playing hockey.
I am continuing my research into the history of league hockey and am currently looking into the history of the Northern Counties Women's Hockey Tournament. It was created for counties but involved some leagues which had been given county status."
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| Bolton Sunday School Social League Champions: Fletcher Street Wesleyans, 1915-16. |
There are several other research projects currently in or around THM sphere that I’d like to highlight:
- Hockey’s Military Stories is a broad research project investigating hockey players who have died in conflict. We’ve recently welcomed Kathryn Draper aboard to help us with this.
- Our research into British hockey festivals continues apace and we’ve welcomed Ian Smith, Paul Mitchell and Steve LeMottee following recent appeals for assistance.
- James Ormandy continues his remote research working on articles such as “Men’s Hockey in Cheshire before 1914” and “Hockey: The Clergymen's Game”.
- Our PhD student David Lewis-Earley continues to attack his doctoral research with great enthusiasm. “An Oral History Of England And Team GB Women’s International Hockey Representatives, 1951-2016” is taking excellent shape.
- Nikhilesh Bhattacharya has completed his PhD thesis titled "When We Were Champions: Nation-Building, Hockey and the Anglo-Indian Community of Calcutta". It now resides in the THM library.
- Judy Smith has been busy editing transcriptions of THM's oral history interviews (an on-going programme of lived history research) so that they can soon be shared online.
- We recently published two significant obituaries following excellent research into the lives of the late Audrey Appleby and Balbir Singh Senior by Katie Dodd and Nikhilesh Bhattacharya respectively. Former THM Trustee Dil Bahra also penned a personal commemoration of Balbir.
Mike Smith, THM Curator
01.07.2020
You’ll likely be aware that THM has been running a campaign to collect material that documents the impact of COVID-19 on hockey. More information and a fantastic, free time capsule activity pack for children can be found here.
One particularly inspirational story that has reached us as a result of this contemporary collecting came from Moss Park HC in Manchester where half of their playing membership are keyworkers.
Lesley Ginsburgh, a Design & Technology teacher at Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College, Altrincham, marshalled her students to make much-needed protective visors for her community. A car boot full went with her Moss Park teammate Eilidh, a junior doctor, to a local Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU); some went with Jos, a local GP, to her practice and some went to a local care agency managing very high-risk patients. Together, Lesley and her students made 1,700 visors and distributed them to anyone who wanted them, from funeral directors and hospices to mental health teams and school nurses. All would have been short of personal protective equipment (PPE) without her efforts.
You can hear Lesley’s remarkable story in her own words, now preserved within THM’s collection, by watching the video below.
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| Lesley in her "rough" first attempt as discussed in the video. |
Making part of the visors in the workshop at Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College. |
Completed visors are laid out ready for |
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Hers is a story that draws a neat parallel with another recently surfaced story of philanthropy and community spirit, but from WW1 – another time of national crisis.
In November 1915 The Hockey Field magazine, then the mouthpiece of the All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA), issued an appeal for hockey players to make fearnought gauntlets for the Royal Navy. 480 pairs of gauntlets (gloves) were urgently needed for the 3rd and 10th Destroyer Flotillas and over 10,000 pairs required for the whole Navy fleet.
Fearnought was a tough insulating wool or flannel-type fabric which prior to WW1 had been used to line the hulls of Arctic and Antarctic exploration vessels. It was obviously a phenomenal insulator. Thinner material such as shoddy or cotton was not sufficient. When it became cold on the ships, particularly bad at night and during the winter, thinner gloves would stick to metal surfaces, which included things like projectiles and the wheels for working the ships' guns and sights. Not wearing gloves wasn't an option because the sailors’ hands would rapidly go numb.
Through appeals like the one in The Hockey Field – which included purchase information and instructions for creating the gauntlets (see below) – the mass production of fearnought gauntlets was realised by a large number of individual acts. Just as people within hockey – individuals like Lesley of Moss Park HC – have come together in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic to offer selfless acts of charity, so too did individual members of the ‘hockey family’ during WW1.
As one naval officer wrote in the Manchester Evening News when appealing for fearnought gauntlets in 1914 (yes, Manchester again), “Don’t be afraid of clumsiness; that does not matter. I assure you nothing would be appreciated more.” Just as Lesley’s first efforts were in her own words “rough”, like the gauntlets their success lay in their practicality and in a personal determination to help others through a crisis.
If you have any material that could be relevant to THM’s #CollectingCOVID campaign or any questions around it, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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| "Fearnought Gloves for Sailors", The Manchester Evening News, 24 October 1914. Click the article to view a more easily readable version (you may need to zoom in). |
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| "Fearnought Gauntlets", The Hockey Field, 4 October 1915. Click the article to view a more easily readable version (you may need to zoom in). |
Following recent government advice regarding COVID-19, The Hockey Museum will be closed from Monday 23 March until further notice.
We are taking this decision to protect the health and welfare of our visitors, volunteers and staff. Museum staff will be working from home, our enquiries service will remain monitored and we intend to continue to engage you with historical hockey content through our social media channels and website.
On Saturday 29 February, THM took advantage of the extra day of 2020 to leap into Old Cranleighan HC for the day.
It builds on previous club visits to Aton HC and Guildford HC in 2019, which together form part of our work towards a Level-Up grant we received from South East Museums Development Partnership.
We took a small display of historical objects, boards, banners and videos to OCHC designed to promote our important work to preserve and celebrate hockey’s 150-year ‘modern’ history and hopefully drum up interest in helping THM to create a real, tangible legacy for the sport.
We also offered the opportunity for members and matchday visitors to bring along any historical memorabilia to discuss, akin to Antiques Roadshow.
We’d like to extend grateful thanks to David Knapp for facilitating this opportunity.
https://www.ochockeyclub.org/2020/02/hockey-museum-visits-td
Sophia Patel (left) and Marcus Wardle (right) work their way through the Pat Rowley Journalistic Archive.
A photograph of two people in front of filing cabinets with a scanner may not appear to be the most riveting of subjects, however they are working on one of the most valuable and important collections that The Hockey Museum (THM) possesses.
Our Archivist Marcus Wardle and Research Assistant Sophia Patel are seen working on the Pat Rowley Journalistic Archive that was acquired by THM in 2017. The archive represents the lifetime work of hockey journalist Patrick Rowley who reported on hockey for more than sixty years. We have more than five filing cabinets with the drawers tightly packed full of all manner of hockey-related material. Patrick was one of the most renowned hockey correspondents working in an era when journalism was the principal means of communication. He also did much work with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) editing their World Hockey magazine.
Being a professional museum, we are duty-bound to protect the integrity of this amazing collection. This means that whilst recording and conserving these tens of thousands of documents, photographs, programmes etc. we must retain the original method of its assemblage. It is fair to say that the logic of this is not always apparent, but when all the material is digitised and recorded the collection will be able to be fully interrogated. We don’t believe that any other such archive exists in hockey so hopefully it can be appreciated how important this work is.
Mike Smith, THM Curator
10.02.2020
This week the Museum had a unique visit by Olympian Avtar Bhurji, a member of the Ugandan hockey team that took part in the 1972 Games in Munich which saw the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village. The Ugandans were housed on a level just above the Israelis but only once caught a glimpse of a balaclava-clad terrorist on the higher balcony. They were unaware of the drama unfolding so close to them until the following morning.
It was Uganda’s first and only Olympics and, although they finished 15th of 16, they earned draws in their pool games with Argentina (0-0), West Germany (1-1) and Spain (2-2) before beating Mexico 4-1 for 15th place.
After being taken on a museum visit by the Curator, Mr Bhurji gave an Oral History interview with volunteer Evelyn Somerville which will be posted on the THM website in due course. Particularly welcome gifts to the Museum were a number of memorabilia items from the Games, including a booklet with images and signatures of Uganda’s athletes in a range of sports.
Avtar was born in Punjab in 1944 and lived in Uganda and Kenya, where he sat his GCEs, before continuing his schooling in England at Kingston College, then taking A Levels at Wolfram College, Wolverhampton. He returned briefly to Uganda where he played for Sikh Union club in Kampala (which supplied nine of the 18-man Olympic squad) and was selected for the Munich Olympics.
He returned to the UK soon after those Games, to live in Croydon and play for Blackheath and London Indians. It was back to Kenya in 1984 while his wife, son and daughter stayed in UK, but he came back to England three years later and has lived here ever since, apart from a brief return to Uganda to help a younger brother set up a construction business. He played social hockey with the Llamas before ending his playing career in 1991 and has been an active coach since then. He now lives in Worcester Park, Surrey.
Mike Haymonds, 29.1.2020
Betty (Shelly) Shellenberger, USA, 8 August 1921 - 30 December 2019.
The Hockey Museum (THM), along with the sporting world, is mourning the passing of Betty Shellenberger, 98. Betty was a legend in American field hockey and lacrosse through much of the 1900s. Known to friends as ‘Shelly’, she first picked up a hockey stick at the age of ten and by eighteen was selected for the national team as their youngest ever player. Betty went on to represent the USA for twenty-one years from 1939 to 1955 with one further appearance in 1960. It is a record for USA Field Hockey that stands to this day.
To read the full obituary on Betty, please visit the Obituaries page of THM website, here.
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Cartoon from the Punch Almanack, 1903. The caption reads:"We had a scratch game with the 'Black and Blue' Club yesterday, but had an awful job to get any men. Enid's brother and a friend of his turned up at the last moment; but they didn't do much except call 'offside'...
A Biography of Janet Macklin (née Smallwood)
When Janet Smallwood (later Mrs Macklin) was awarded her first international cap for Scotland in 1951 she was not the first member of her family to have an international sporting honour – her father, Alistair Smallwood, was selected to play for England Rugby in the 1920s. Alistair was born in...
The Festival of Britain’s Grand International Hockey Tournament 1951
Cover of the programme for the Grand International Hockey Tournament during the Festival of Britain, 1951.Click the image to download the full programme as a PDF.Credit: the AEWHA Collection at the University of Bath Library. Seventy years ago in May 1951, a very unusual sporting event was staged...
Harvey Wood: England’s Mysterious Giant Goalkeeper
[ Editor's note: A follow up article to this piece has since been published which corrects some aspects of the below. Please click here for the follow up article: Correcting Hockey History: The Hunt for Harvey Wood | hockeymuseum.net ] A piece of research on the 1908 Olympic Games together with...
Bandy In Shakespeare
Portrait of William Shakespeare, 1610. Possibly painted by John Taylor. There are several references to the word ‘bandy’ in the works of English playwright William Shakespeare, including one in Romeo and Juliet when Romeo, trying to stop a fight between Tybalt and Mercutio, declares: “The Prince expressly hath forbidden...
Hockey-Playing Thespians Of The Edwardian Era
Frank Benson, actor and hockey players, inWilliam Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The Edwardian era would witness the peak of theatre going and its watershed moment as cinema arrived. It also witnessed a sporting boom – especially in hockey – and one club, Benson’s Hockey Club, had done...
It's A Date: Celebrating the First Scotland Women's International Match
By Katie Dodd The first Scotland women's team, 1901. The 13 April 2001 is the 120th anniversary of Scotland women’s very first international match, played against Ireland in Dublin. I was first made aware of this special date during a conversation with Evlyn Raistrick, former Scottish and International...
Easter Festivals in Years Gone By
Not that many years ago Easter festivals were the much-anticipated climax to the hockey season. Many hundreds of teams, certainly well into four figures, would travel to play in one of over fifty festivals that took place around Britain. The most popular venues were seaside ones, from Bournemouth to Bridlington...
An Amazing Find As The Hockey Museum Links Up With The British Museum
It’s not often that small, independent museums like The Hockey Museum (THM) have an opportunity to change the narrative of national history, but today we share some very exciting news concerning a highly significant archaeological collection – the Anglo-Saxon burial ship at Sutton Hoo. Sutton Hoo gained a lot of...
Welsh Honours Caps: A Tale of Interrelated Research
By Elton Riches I was researching in The Hockey Museum (THM) library reviewing the early hockey periodicals for photographs or illustrations of player-issued caps. I located a black-and-white photograph in an 1898 publication showing the Welsh men’s hockey team wearing honours caps. Clear evidence that the Welsh national teams were...
Remembering Wembley
On 3 March 2021 The Hockey Museum (THM) celebrated the 70th anniversary of the first England women’s hockey match at Wembley Stadium in 1951. In partnership with Talk Hockey Radio, we produced a podcast (The Special One - Epsiode 6) and video of the personal memories of Maggie Souyave, Anita White...
Wembley Was A Family Affair
By Christabel Russell Vick I grew up knowing that the Wembley hockey international was the biggest fixture in the women’s hockey calendar. When I talked to my mother (Mary Russell Vick) about her hockey career, I was amazed to discover that these matches at the iconic Wembley Stadium were entirely...
The First Ever Women's International Hockey Match in 1896
Action photo of Ireland vs England women, the first ever women's international hockey match in 1896. 2 March 2021 is the 125th anniversary of the first ever women’s international hockey match in 1896, between Ireland and England. Ireland beat England 2-0. The game took place on the Alexandra...
Unearthing Further Hockey Connections At Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo excavation, 1939. Still from film made by Harold John Phillips.Public domain. In a recent article (click here) we covered the links that exist between the Netflix blockbuster film The Dig and our sport of hockey. Following that piece, we received news of a further hockey connection. If...
Digging Hockey: An Excavation of Edith Pretty's Links to Hockey
by Dr Jo Halpin. Portrait of Edith Pretty by Dutch artist Cor Visser.© National Trust / Robin Pattinson Edith Pretty is famous for unearthing an Anglo-Saxon burial ship on her land at Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1939 – an event that has now been made...
In Search of The Hull & District Hockey Register
In 1900 there were just twenty clubs from the North affiliated to the Hockey Association (HA) causing some historians have been misled as to the game’s popularity outside of the home counties. In most northern towns and cities at this time hockey playing was increasingly popular. For example: in Hull...
Never Defeated By Wine Or In A Game: A Secret Edwardian Gentlemen's Hockey Club
Cover of the Sticks Club Handbook, 1910 A fascinating item recently came into The Hockey Museum’s possession which threw an amusing light on a social activity in London hockey circles in the early years of the last century. It was the history of an exclusive gentlemen’s hockey club...
The Jean Arnold Collection: The Lord Mayor's Cup
The Jean Arnold collection was donated to The Hockey Museum (THM) during lockdown and is now helping to uncover more of the once-hidden history of women’s league hockey. Jean Arnold Jean Arnold, a well-known figure in Liverpool hockey circles, has donated a large number of items relating to the...
Baffling Brass Buttons
The Hockey Museum (THM) has recently acquired a set of blazer buttons that once adorned the England blazer of George Hardy. These buttons, emblazoned (ahem) with the HA logo of the Hockey Association, presumably made their way to Hardy’s fellow England player, Captain John Yate Robinson who passed them...
A Tale Of Principled Pilley
On 14 April 1935 (not 1938 as stated on this British Pathé YouTube clip), Germany women played England women in Berlin. The result was 6-4 victory for England. An unexpected tour given the precarious political situation in Europe. The England team line up: Eileen Arnold (GK), Mary Knott (Cptn), Marjorie...
A Rare Item In The Modern Hockey World
The Hockey Museum recently received a Winchester HC fixture card for the 2017-2018 season. This came as a bit of a surprise as we knew that many (most?) clubs no longer produce such a publication. With the availability of information on the internet and social media they have become virtually...
Old Creightonians Archive Arrives With A Suprise
Mike Smith, Curator of THM (left) discusses theOld Creightonians HC archive with Simon Lawton-Smith (right). At The Hockey Museum (THM) we receive at least one collection each week, but not many have a twist in the story like this one. A recent visit by Simon Lawton-Smith brought us the club records...
Terrific Trophies
Over the past couple of years, a considerable amount of material, including a large collection of trophies, has come to THM from Cannock HC. It was rescued from the former National Hockey Stadium in Milton Keynes by Laurie Alcock, affectionately known as 'Mr Cannock'. Had Laurie not saved it, the cabinets and artefacts...
The Work Of Preserving Hockey Heritage: Saving The AEWHA Scrapbook
The All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA) Collection is looked after at the University of Bath by their Archivist, Lizzie Richmond. The collection contains many unique and irreplaceable items documenting the evolution of women’s hockey in the UK. Two items, the Hockey Jottings scrapbook and the very first minute book...
A Vintage Christmas Present? From India To The London Stage
Photo from Daisy Pulls It Off, showing at the Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London.Photo courtesy of Tomas Turpie. One of our eagle-eyed supporters spotted this wonderful image taken by Tomas Turpie in The Times newspaper last week. It was from a review of Daisy Pulls It Off, a play that...
An Early Easter Hockey Tour
Programme (cover) of The Newport Centrals Hockey Club Fourth Annual Tour, Season 1913-14 Easter hockey tours and festivals have been very popular for many years, probably more so before the league systems were set up in the 1960s and ‘70s. A recent find, hidden amongst our postcard collection, gives...
Bullets Stopped Play
Yesterday one of our volunteers was going through a collection and found this newspaper cutting from Thanet International Hockey Festival, 1964. Anyone who has been to Thanet will know that three coats is a mininum and not just because of the flying bullets.
Hockey Played In Antarctica
"First game of Hockey played on ice near Ship", from The Atlantic magazine, 2013. The Hockey Museum recently heard of hockey being played in a most unlikely location: on the sea ice in Antarctica. We were contacted by an Antarctic history enthusiast who pointed out that the British Film...
Bringing History To Life With Juan Calzado
The Hockey Museum (THM) was very proud to receive a visit recently (28 March 2017) from Juan Calzado, former President of the International Hockey Federation (FIH), European Hockey Federation (EHF) and Real Club de Polo, Barcelona. We were honoured that on a holiday visit to London with family he took...
An Update On The English Cup
In 2015 The Hockey Museum received an enquiry from Alan Lancaster. He sent two photographs, one a team photograph, which Alan thought was Newhey Ladies’ Hockey team. One of the photographs featured his mother Doreen Howles and her two sisters, Vera and June holding a cup which was believed to...
Three Antique Silver Cups From The Royal Navy HA
Does the existence of three antique silver cups with the Royal Navy HA have a ‘black lining’? The Royal Navy Hockey Association is the proud owner of three silver cups that date back to the 1900 period. They were used for different competitions between ships and units that made up...
The Grand International Match
During the First World War, the War Office often used sporting references to try to persuade sportsmen to enlist and an amusing notice in the book Ireland’s Call (by Stephen Walker) recently caught our eye.
The Liberty Bodice
We recently came across an interesting advertisement in The Hockey Field magazine from 6 January 1916: "Physical Instructors and Games Mistresses are recommended to try the Liberty Bodice. It obviates the necessity for corsets and gives absolute freedom of movement to growing girls. It is ideal wear for all kinds...
Hockey And Football: A Comparison
We recently acquired copies of a rare early sports magazine dating from 1906 – The Cricketer, The Hockey and Football Player. It was only published for just over a year taking in two cricket and one winter season. The magazines contain a number of interesting articles that make comment on...
An Illegal Hockey Stick
New collections are, thankfully, arriving weekly and many of them create great interest when received. The hockey stick illustrated in the below images was a real example of this. It came complete with a copy of an advertisement from Hockey Magazine of 4 September 1908 extolling the virtues of the...
The Jet-propelled Hockey Stick That Didn't Take Off!
In response to the many enquiries that we receive at The Hockey Museum our volunteers are constantly trawling through hockey publications in search of information. These searches often take twice as long as expected because we find unrelated pieces that are very interesting. One such piece was discovered recently in...
Hockey On The Sand At Minehead
Hockey players on the beach at Minehead with North Hill behind. Photograph by Alfred Vowles. Unlike most of today's youngsters who learn to play on artificial pitches, Nan Williams, a former England international and volunteer at The Hockey Museum (THM), started her playing career on the sands of Minehead on the...
Have You Heard Of The English Cup?
I have recently joined the many volunteers working with the The Hockey Museum. As I live in the Manchester area I am quite away from all the action, however I have recently been forwarded a couple of enquires from the Museum in relation to matters from the North! My first...
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