July 2023 saw the release of the much-anticipated biographical film Oppenheimer, which tells the story of the American nuclear physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, often recognised as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’. Situated in a remote part of New Mexico, USA, the secret Los Alamos Laboratory was established by the Manhattan Project to design and build the first nuclear bomb under the direction of Oppenheimer. The film’s release coincided with the arrival of a new archive that links the development of the atomic bomb to English club hockey.

The British Government had earlier established its own atomic bomb project, but once the USA entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies, their economic muscle soon saw the Manhattan Project dwarf its British predecessor. In August 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D Roosevelt signed the Quebec Agreement ensuring research co-operation between the two nations. This was followed by a British-led team of multi-national scientists travelling to Los Alamos.

Cillian Murphy is J Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. © Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

The Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE)

Following the war, atomic energy co-operation ceased and Britain proceeded with its own nuclear weapons programme becoming only the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon in October 1952. The British post-war programme was set up in the late 1940s and, by the early 1950s the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) was based out of the former airfield at Royal Air Force (RAF) Aldermaston, outside Reading, Berkshire. Their records are held at The National Archives, but an archive relating to the AWRE Hockey Club, founded by workers at the Aldermaston site, has fittingly made its way to The Hockey Museum.

Atomic Weapons Research Establishment Hockey Club (AWREHC)

Parts of the AWREHC archive recently donated to The Hockey Museum.

Among the documents recently donated is the splendidly titled A Long Drawn Out History (Vaguely Remembered) of AWREHC. It explains that by 1953 some of the staff that were to work at Aldermaston had moved into the area with three in particular keen to play hockey. One of these men, John Carroll, managed to arrange a handful of fixtures for the 1953/54 hockey season. Playing numbers were sparse in the early years and the AWRE needed the help of the local/rival Newbury & Thatcham Hockey Club (N&THC) members to fulfil these early scratch fixtures. In 1954, one G D Small was transferred to work at AWRE and promptly joined the fledgling hockey club. The record amusingly states that he was “better known … as ‘Red’ or ‘Big Jim’ and by his opponents as something else”. In that year he was Chairman, Fixtures Secretary, Team Secretary, Treasurer, player and Captain – very much the nucleus of the Club!

The men’s club was formally constituted ahead of the 1956/57 season. The AWRE women’s team initially operated independently but the two sections amalgamated in 1958.

The club struggled to be competitive during its first decade or so. The chronicle reflects on how established hockey clubs in neighbouring towns where the AWRE workforce lived – N&THC, Reading HC and Basingstoke HC – consistently attracted employees away. This “prevented the Club from achieving the success that would have raised it above the level of an average works club”. That said, they had a strong history of mixed-gender hockey from the early 1960s, winning the Penguins Hockey Festival at Worthing on at least two occasions, and the men sent a team to the first two Easter festivals at Weymouth in 1963 & 1964.

Somewhat notoriously in 1963, a (presumably stuffed) bear was ‘borrowed’ from The Bear Hotel in the nearby Berkshire town of Hungerford. After an explosion (ahem) of publicity to the benefit of the hotel, the bear was safely returned by the AWRE membership. The bear then enjoyed a short-lived attempt to be incorporated into the club’s branding, but AWREHC always retained the atomic symbol of its origins.

The club formally changed its name to Aldermaston Hockey Club in 1975. There is no record of the hockey club after 1980 when it seemingly ceased to be (radio)active.