Jean Arnold receives the British Empire Medal for services to hockey and education.

On 5 November 2021, Jean Arnold received the British Empire Medal for services to hockey and education from Mark Blundell, Lieutenant of Merseyside, at a ceremony at Liverpool Town Hall.

She has been inspirational in promoting and encouraging children and young people in the sport of hockey. It would be impossible to count the number of hours that Jean has devoted to hockey for the benefit of others.

Jean attended Nonington College of Physical Education (PE) in Kent between 1960 and 1963, going on to teach PE at La Sagesse High School in Grassendale, Liverpool. Her students remember her as an inspirational and dynamic teacher who was instrumental in encouraging her pupils to follow in her PE-teaching footsteps.

Today, aged 82, Jean is still the driving force of junior hockey in Liverpool. She established the City of Liverpool Junior Hockey Club in 2015 as an extension of Liverpool Ladies’ Hockey Club, the oldest hockey club in Liverpool. Jean’s energy and enthusiasm is unrivalled. She coaches at least three times every week and runs holiday hockey camps. She organises competitions and runs teams from Under 9s to Under 19s.

Jean has previously donated a collection to THM relating to women’s hockey in Liverpool and including the Lord Mayor's Cup. Click here to discover more.

John Scrini retired this year after numerous years serving Lancashire Hockey Association and as the President of the North Hockey Association.

One of John’s last acts was to donate Lancashire HA minutes dating back to 1895 to The Hockey Museum. In his final address at the North’s final Annual General Meeting (ahead of this season’s national re-structure), John gave praise to the work undertaken by The Hockey Museum and to one of our volunteers James Ormandy. James had discovered a report in an 1897 issue of Hockey magazine that had a reference to his grandfather Alexander George Scrini playing for West Derby HC in Liverpool.

The 1897-98 volume of Hockey was recently digitised by the museum and as a result we are now able to search the volume by word or name. This has provided unparalleled ease of access to rare source material and the unlocking stories which further inform our understanding of hockey in Victorian Britain.

James found numerous references to John’s grandfather’s playing career including one referring to how he had organised West Derby’s Easter 1898 tour of North Wales. There they played Rhyl twice, Llandudno, Colwyn Bay and the touring Newport team from South Wales. Obviously, hockey administration is in the family genes.

John informed us that his grandfather Alexander was an importer of oranges to the UK and was known as the ‘Jaffa King’, which now has us wondering whether the tradition of half-time oranges started at West Derby HC.

Example references to John Scrini's grandfather, Alexander Scrini from Hockey magazine, 1897.

Future Digitisation Plans

THM has ambitious plans to digitise vast swathes of its collection, including further volumes of magazines as a priority.

Our magazines are a treasure trove of stories and digitising them will mean we can share the information they hold with our researchers far and wide. Increased access to research material through our intended digitisation programme will better and more quickly inform our understanding of hockey and bring the history of the sport to life; but it costs time and money.

If you would like to support THM’s digitisation project financially, please make contact through our website contact form.

The Hockey Museum (THM) is delighted to announce its participation in MuseumWIDE, a new training programme from South East Museum Development. It will guide THM on its journey to become more welcoming, inclusive, diverse and equitable, building on the values and strengths already evident in hockey and within the museum’s heritage collections.

The Hockey Museum has created an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee led by Trustee Tochi Panesar. Also represented on the committee are fellow trustees, staff members and volunteers ensuring input from across the museum’s operation. The committee’s initial ambition is to create a series of EDI commitments that would permeate throughout THM ensuring consideration of EDI principles in future activity. MuseumWIDE was identified as a vehicle through which we can achieve this successfully. In addition to a programme of webinar-based learning, as part of the project THM will work with expert consultant Isilda Almeida to self-assess and reflect, and to shape our EDI commitments.

We were delighted to learn on 11 November that we had been one of the 11 successful candidates across the South East of England. For a small, independent museum we are in very good company!

Through our participation in MuseumWIDE we hope to become a more relevant and inclusive museum for volunteers, staff, and in-person and online visitors. It is an opportunity to draw on external expertise to continue our organisational growth. This EDI project will build upon previous work undertaken to review THM’s strategic direction and learn new digital skills, all in the name of making THM a more sustainable and engaging museum.

The MuseumWIDE project begins on 18 November 2021 and concludes on 26 May 2022. Below is an overview of the itinerary.

The MuseumWIDE Programme

The programme will consist of a total of 6 live online group training sessions, as well as 4 recorded sessions for participant museums to watch and return to at their convenience. Regular online coffee mornings will provide a relaxed space for participants to discuss their ongoing work, the programme content and speak openly with Isilda Almeida. Isilda will also be providing 1-2-1 sessions with each participating museum.

For more information on the MuseumWIDE programme, visit the South East Museum Development website: click here.

THM’s EDI Committee hopes to engage as many trustees and volunteers as possible in this programme.

Our thanks to Helen Derbyshire, our South East Museums Development Officer, for her support and encouragement to pursue this programme.

Friday 22 October 2021 at The Hockey Museum, Woking

The Great Britain hockey team that toured Australia in 1966 looking resplendent in their newly awarded honours caps 55 years later. Standing (left to right): Geoff Nott, Mike Crowe, Richard Oliver, Tony Ekins, Tim Lawson, Keith Sinclair, Colin Whalley, Jeremy Barham, Austin Savage. Seated (left to right): Roger Flood, Geoff Poole, Alan Jackson.

On 22 October, The Hockey Museum (THM) hosted an event for the Great Britain (GB) men’s squad that toured Australia in 1966.

For the squad of originally eighteen players, it was the reunion of a tightly knit group who have been held together over the past half century by their amazing captain David Prosser. David had organized several reunions over the intervening years, but very sadly he passed away in January. This event was also, therefore, a commemoration of the squad’s much-loved skipper. Thankfully the organisation mantle was taken up by Jeremy Barham, who did an amazing job of bringing the squad together and contacting those who were unable to attend.

The occasion served as an opportunity to present GB honours caps to the squad, twelve of whom were able to attend – a remarkable achievement fifty-five years on. THM had presented David’s cap last Christmas, to his great joy. Another member, Howard Harrison, passed away in the summer, but his son Henry attended to receive his father’s cap.

Of the remaining four players, two were unable to travel: Denis Hay in Scotland and John Knight in East Anglia, so they were visited at home and presented with their caps. The final two have long since emigrated: David Gaffney to Australia and John Forster to the USA, but even with them being so far away THM managed to arrange their presentations. John received his from Sharon Taylor, past President of the United Stated Field Hockey Association, who drove some 900 miles each way between Idaho and Arizona to do the honours.

The cap presentations at the museum were fittingly made by David Prosser’s widow Amanda, followed by the drinking of a toast to his memory. This completed the extraordinary achievement of the presentation of caps to all eighteen squad members (albeit one to family) who toured Australia – and clearly had a very enjoyable time doing so – fifty-five years previously.

Watch the short film below for more insight into that day itself and the GB cap presentations that preceded it.

The Great Britain hockey team prior to setting off for Australia in 1966.
All aboard the BOAC aeroplane to Australia.		GB forward Colin Whalley in action during the tour.

October 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of modern hockey.

In the intervening century and one half, many momentous happenings have occurred, a lot of which are worthy of being recorded with a blue heritage plaque.

The Hockey Museum is now able to offer clubs, schools, universities, indeed anyone within our sport, the opportunity to celebrate appropriate landmarks by installing a hockey heritage blue plaque.

There are countless reasons for creating a plaque. Some suggestions:

• One of your club members who played internationally.
• A significant match that took place on your club or school's ground.
• To celebrate the age or a milestone anniversary of your club.

The plaques have a very traditional appearance, stylistically similar to those created by English Heritage. They are cast and painted blue and include wording agreed with the purchaser.

Every plaque is unique. The cost is £70 plus carriage or collection.

To enquire about a hockey heritage blue plaque, please use the website contact form.

My name is Ana Brown. I am a third year Modern History student at Royal Holloway University, hoping to go into a career in museums. Since August I have been volunteering at The Hockey Museum (THM) to gain some experience and insight into the field.

I have been assisting Dr Jo Halpin with her research into women’s hockey in the 1920s. This has involved going through The Hockey Field magazines for coverage of the United States Field Hockey Association’s (USFHA) women's tour to the UK in 1924 – how the matches went, where they stayed, any dinners or sightseeing that they did, and so on. THM museum team have been a brilliant help guiding me in searching through the collections. The most exciting moment was the discovery of a collection of items from this 1924 tour previously belonging to one of the USFHA players, Marjorie Taylor. Her collection includes photographs, event tickets, dinner invitations and receipts giving a wonderful snapshot of the social side of the tour.

Having these items to look through has been a rewarding experience. After spending so long reading their names and the descriptions of the matches, I was able to put faces to names, see informal photos (alongside the official ones) and get more of a sense of the players’ personalities.

Photographs from the Marjorie Taylor collection held at The Hockey Museum. Left: The USFHA touring team at Edinburgh Castle in 1924. RIght: Marjorie Taylor (standing) during the tour to the UK in 1924.

I don’t have a hockey background and don’t know much about the sport, but I love social and cultural history and particularly its impact on women. Researching the tour was very enjoyable and rewarding. Seeing these pioneering women relaxing with friends or just seeing what they felt was worth photographing while sightseeing, increased the sense of connection I felt with them – a feeling of familiarity with a group of friends on a tour, having an exciting transatlantic trip and playing the sport they love. I felt so fond of them. Moreover, I don’t have much experience in research projects like this one, so to have tangible objects from the tour felt precious and exciting. Matching photographs to descriptions of the events was gratifying and I felt like a proper historian!

Especially rewarding is the fact that Marjorie Taylor wasn’t mentioned in The Hockey Field much, but suddenly her keepsakes became such a valuable part of the research and she became a significant figure. This is exactly why I enjoy studying history and why I love museums; every single person has stories worth telling, and it is wonderful to be playing a part in keeping that alive.

I loved the experience of putting this research together, and I’m looking forward to doing more.

Ana Brown 

What Will Come From Ana's Research?

The Hockey Museum is working with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the United States Field Hockey Association (USFHA) to celebrate the centenary of the latter in February 2022. Research into the women’s tours in the 1920s – both the USA team to the UK and the UK Home Nations’ teams to the USA – is revealing connections between the nations that were clearly influential in the founding of the USFHA in 1922. We are working to deliver digital storytelling around this anniversary in 2022.

You can help by assisting us with tracking down copies of The Eagle magazine. Click here to find out more.

For many people, mention of The Eagle magazine will bring back memories of the boys all-action comic from the 1950s & ’60s. But for a generation of women hockey players in America, The Eagle was the official magazine that covered hockey in the USA through the middle part of the 20th century. The Hockey Museum (THM) has several copies of this publication, but we are looking for more.

Can anyone help us to locate more copies to add to our collection?

These copies of The Eagle magzine came to us in the twelfth collection THM ever received, but we have had very few since.

We found some back copies of The Eagle in the National Library for Scotland and with the help of Sharon Taylor, former President of the USFHA and THM Ambassador and others, we have located a few more editions. As you may have read in previous editions of THM's mailshot Hockey Shorts (sign up by clicking here), the first ever Great Britain women’s team toured the USA in 1965. This story was pulled together using information from back copies of The Eagle as well as from the memories and archives of the women who played. Click here for the full story.

We now have an additional reason for wanting to acquire further copies of this magazine. In 2022, the United States Field Hockey Association (USFHA) will be celebrating its centenary. The women’s association was founded in 1922 by Constance Appleby and the men’s association came into being six years later in 1928. THM is in touch with the USFHA and has offered our help in their efforts to tell the story of those early years. If anyone has information about the early years on US hockey, please get in touch using the contact form on THM website.

Discover some of the exciting research being undertaken as part of this centenary by clicking here.

Friday 15 October 2021 at Cottrell Park Golf Resort, Cardiff

The Great Britain & Ireland Touring Team to the USA in 1965 were awarded their Great Britain honours caps at a presentation dinner in Cardiff on 15.10.2021. In the left photograph: Back row: Valerie Crombie (nee Sinclair), Giles Stokes and Angela Madley (Jennifer Stokes nee Braham's son and daughter), Kate Layton (Mary Drake nee Hyland’s niece). Front row: Janice Lang (nee Mitchell) , Ellen Jenkins (nee Toulson), Eirianwen Thomas, Helen O’Boyle (nee O’Neill), Janet Hopkins (nee Morgan).

At a very special ceremony at Cottrell Park Golf Club, Cardiff, the surviving members of the very first women’s GB Squad to be selected in 1965, were presented with their GB Honours Caps by the current GB Hockey President, Sheila Morrow. Six members of this trailblazing team, Helen O’Boyle (nee O’Neill) (Ireland), Eirianwen Thomas and Janet Hopkins (nee Morgan) (both Wales), Janice Lang (nee Mitchell) and Valerie Crombie (nee Sinclair) (both Scotland) and Ellen Jenkins (nee Toulson) (England) came together again for the first time in 56 years. Listening to them sharing great memories of the tour to the USA, their other stories and the laughter, it seemed like it had only happened yesterday. These former players were joined by the relatives of Jennifer Braham (England) and Mary Hyland (Wales) who are sadly no longer with us.

The event was hosted by the Welsh Women’s Hockey Golf Group at their annual lunch. THM was represented by Katie Dodd and Sue Lane. Sue, along with Steve Ellis, have been the two museum volunteers responsible for the majority of work to pull together the complete the GB match records.

When The Hockey Museum started the work to compile a complete and accurate record of every GB match and the players who played in them, the commonly held view was that the first GB women’s team was selected in 1978 ahead of the entry of women’s hockey into the Olympic Games in 1980. The discovery of a 1965 GB & Ireland Touring Team (GB&ITT) blazer in the Dublin City Library Archives that had been donated by Joan Horne, changed all this. Further research confirmed the existence of a GB tour to the USA and the names of all the players – but was this an official tour and could the two matches played against the USA team be counted as capped games? After much research by the museum’s volunteer sleuths and contact with many of the squad members and hockey colleagues in the USA, we were able to confirm that the team was selected by an official GB committee and it played against the USA in two matches that the United States Field Hockey Association (USFHA) considered as full international matches.

The members and relatives of the first GB women’s team had come together from all over the UK. There were emotional reunions as they met in the bar to begin the reminiscing, carrying on during lunch which was then followed by the GB honours cap presentation ceremony itself. At the end, the tourists were serenaded by all the Welsh players who, led by Janet Morgan (now Mrs Hopkins) on the ukulele, gave a special rendition of “This land is your land” which had been the tour song back in 1965.

https://youtu.be/di_pRJMV4Os

 

Great Britain & Ireland Touring Team in the USA in 1965.

 

Janice Mitchell (now Mrs Lang) relayed:

“A very big ‘Thank You' to The Hockey Museum team who were responsible for pulling together all the information which enabled the presentations of the GB&ITT honours caps to be made … It was obviously a mammoth task but one for which I, as a player in that first GB&ITT team, am extremely grateful. Never did we think that 56 years on we would be receiving our hockey caps for playing in that 1965 Touring Team to the USA. It was a very emotional day and I would not have missed it for the world – the cap is really fantastic and I am so proud to have received it. Having the caps funded was much appreciated and a big thank you to GB Hockey for arranging this.”

Giles Stokes who attended to receive his mother’s GB cap added:

"It was an honour for my sister Angela and I to represent our Mum, Jennifer Braham, and receive her GB cap from the 1965 USA tour. A special event, meeting some of the players from that very first GB squad who had fond memories of our Mum."

 

THM managed to contact all seven surviving squad members, five attended the presentations in Cardiff. Sadly, Joan Horne was taken ill the day before the event so was unable to travel and Thelma Hopkins, who now lives in Canada, is currently in hospital and we have not yet been able to speak to her.

The Museum has also managed to track down the relatives or friends of the remaining members of the squad who are no longer with us. Their GB caps will now find good homes. The families of Jennifer Braham and Mary Hyland received their caps during this presentation event and Bridget Cannell’s daughter, Tracy French, was presented with her mother’s GB Cap earlier this year (click here). The squad’s captain, Joyce Hunter (Scotland), had no living relatives so THM is in discussion with The High School of Dundee where she went to school and where other items of her hockey career are already on display. We have been in touch with the relatives of Helen Weir, the GB squad goalkeeper, and are planning a special ceremony for them to receive her cap in the coming months. Maureen Short (England) also had no relatives so we are arranging to present her GB cap to IM Marsh PE College at next year’s Old Students Reunion. Maureen was a long-time lecturer at the college and items of her England and GB kit are already in their archives. Barbara Stacey has also died with no close relatives, and we are using Welsh contacts to find close friends.

 

 

The full 1965 squad as pictured in the above photograph:

Back row: Jennifer Braham (Mrs Stokes); Joan Horne (Mrs Priestman); Maureen Short; Helen Weir; Bridget Cannell (Mrs Parkes); Thelma Hopkins (Mrs McClernon); Valerie Sinclair (Mrs Crombie).

Sitting: Mary Hyland (Mrs Drake); Janice Mitchell (Mrs Lang); Joyce Hunter (Captain); Mrs Hopkins, (Manager); Eirianwen Thomas; Ellen Toulson (Mrs Jenkins); Helen O’Neil (Mrs O’Boyle).

Kneeling: Barbara Stacey; Janet Morgan (Mrs Hopkins).

 

Katie Dodd

Regular visitors to The Hockey Museum (THM) website or our Hockey Shorts emails (click here to sign up) will be aware of the very active project to present honours caps to current and former Great Britain (GB) players or, if deceased, their families. The project arose from our work to collate a definitive record of GB match and player statistics enabling THM to know who played for GB, for how many times and what their unique player number is.

If you’re a new website visitor, welcome; some of the project's success stories can be discovered by clicking here (re. Harry Haslam), here (re. Bridget Cannell) and here (re. 2021 GB squads).

Bridget Cannell's daughter, Tracy French, and son, Mike Cannell, received their mother's honours cap from former Great Britain internationals Jan Burrows (former England captain, second left) and Mary Eckersall (former England & GB captain, far right).

The Presentation Of GB Caps

The majority of the GB honours caps will be presented in May and June 2022 at the Pro League matches in front of sizeable crowds, meantime THM is proceeding with some individual and group/squad presentations. Indeed, we have just ordered the 100th cap for presentation – quite the milestone for our entirely volunteer-led project!

THM is only ordering caps as and when required because we know that not every player or their ancestors will claim their cap. Our experience here has come from the British Lions rugby setup who ordered a 'full set’ at the outset and still have 300 unclaimed.

The 100th cap is for Anthony (Tony) Nunn (pictured during a visit to THM in 2019) who we believe to be the last surviving player from the 1952 Helsinki bronze medal-winning team. We have already presented John Peake with his cap after he represented GB at the 1948 London Olympic Games, so we are now looking to the Melbourne team from 1956. If you have any information about our ageing GB players, please do let us know. We have also made presentations to players who have sadly become unwell. Similarly, if you know of any GB players in failing health, we will do all we can to arrange a presentation. 

We are also in the process of arranging two group presentations.

The first is for the GB & Ireland women's touring team to the USA in 1965 – for more information on this story click here. The survivors will be meeting in South Wales later this month to receive their caps.

The second group is the GB men's touring team to Australia in 1966. Of the 18 who made the trip, 16 are still alive and 12 are coming to the museum to receive their caps and enjoy a reunion lunch. The other four players, two of whom are overseas, will be receiving their caps in private presentations. Of the two deceased players, their captain David Prosser received his cap before his untimely death in January and the other, Howard Harrison, will be represented by his son at the reunion. 18 out of 18 can't be a bad result!

If you are a former player yourself interested in a group presentation and reunion, please do get in touch with THM via our online contact form.

Like What We're Doing? Please Donate.

If you're inspired by what we are doing, please consider donating to The Hockey Museum. We are a charity museum and we need your support. Click here to learn how.

A framed presentation of hockey ties from each of the member clubs of the London Hockey League, presented to Peter Boizot.

This weekend, Sunday the 12 September, sees the last act in the history of the London League, the oldest men's league in England.

Formed in 1969, it has served London club hockey for 52 years. Things gradually changed when the National League came into being for the 1988/89 season when eight teams initially departed the London League to join. This still left a strong core of 16 teams in the London League before most were eventually absorbed in the early ‘90s.

Despite this, lower elevens and smaller London clubs continued with a very active league programme until this year.

With the reorganisation of the English Regions, league hockey throughout the land has been restructured. The old South Division or Region has seen the greatest change with the London League losing its identity altogether.

This coming Sunday sees the last event being organised by them: a finale at Southgate Hockey Club that involves a match on the League’s inaugural playing surface of grass; the teams will be made up from clubs throughout the League. It will be followed by a luncheon at which the London League's main trophy, the Robert Watson Bowl will be presented to The Hockey Museum (THM). It is also hoped that the London League archives will be deposited with THM to ensure that its history will not be forgotten.

Some material relating to the history of the London League is already part of the museum's collection thanks to former Chairman Rodney Rigby. Amongst these was a set of ties of all member clubs mounted in a frame. This had been presented to long-time supporter and sponsor of the League, the late Peter Boizot on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The presentation was made at the League’s annual event at the Café Royale in Piccadilly after their traditional dinner of sausage and mash. Following Peter's death, the frame became unloved and was rescued, re-framed and presented to THM by Rodney.

If you have anything that could help to tell the London League story, do please consider THM for its future home. Visit our online contact form and select "collection donations".