Men’s maroon and gold Umbro playing shirt: Commonwealth Rovers HC.

The Hockey Museum’s (THM) staff and volunteers recently attended the exhibition Umbro 100: Sportswear x Fashion held throughout April at the University of Westminster’s gallery space in London. The exhibition explored 100 years of British sportswear and its influence on fashion designers. We were lucky enough to be hosted by its curators, Professor Andrew Groves and Dr Danielle Sprecher, who talked us through their work and fielded questions from our enthusiastic group.

The exhibition featured Umbro sporting apparel and fashion items exclusively from the Westminster Menswear Archive (WMA) – there were no loan items despite offers from THM and other institutions. Interesting, too, was the decision to display garments using Perspex hangers rather than mannequins which reflected the industrial gallery setting but, significantly, made the clothing labels visible. These would prove relevant to THM despite there being no hockey clothing featured in the exhibition. Using the information on certain labels and cross-referenced with the Umbro catalogues in the WMA archive, we were able to enhance our catalogue records for the Umbro items in our collection. Now this Commonwealth Rovers Hockey Club shirt is described and dated more accurately.

The new caption reads: Men’s Umbro playing shirt with gold badge: Commonwealth Rovers HC, Chelmsford, Essex. Maroon with gold collar and sleeves, and white buttons. Made from Twiltex in the “Arsenal design” Umbro style. The inside label reads “Styled by Matt Busby for Umbro”, size medium. Dated between 1958 and circa 1966.

Does anyone know more about Commonwealth Rovers HC? It is not a club we know anything about. The shirt was donated to THM within the collection of one Jack Brown by his family. Jack was most closely associated with Ford Motors HC.

More about the Umbro 100 exhibition: Umbro 100 | Westminster Menswear Archive

Detail of the inside label of the Umbro shirt. It reads “Styled by Matt Busby for Umbro”.

Detail of the Commonwealth Rovers HC cloth badge.

Page from the 1966 Umbro catalogue, the last known to show the style of shirt worn by Commonwealth Rovers HC. Reproduction courtesy of the Westminster Menswear Archive.