Barnes Hockey Club success but a forgotten history

:

The Hockey Museum » 2025 News Items » Grassroots and Club Hockey » Women's Hockey » Barnes Hockey Club success but a forgotten history

April 23, 2025

At the end of last month (March 2025), Barnes Hockey Club’s Women’s First Team confirmed their promotion to the England Hockey Premier Division with a thumping 5-2 victory over Surbiton Hockey Club. The Hockey Paper ran a main feature stating that next season they would be playing in England’s premier league “for the first time in the club’s history”.

Barnes women taste title success and Premier Division promotion – The Hockey Paper

A photograph of a women's hockey team. Players are in two rows, the back row standing and the front row seated. They wear medals around their necks and the captain in the centre of the front row holds a cup-shaped trophy. The players are wearing navy blue shorts and navy sports shirts with yellow and white sleeves. Their socks are yellow, navy blue and white hoops.

Barnes Hockey Club Women’s First Team, which earned promotion to the English Premier Division during the 2024/2025 season.

While it is true that the name Barnes has not appeared in the Premier Division before, the women’s section of the club has direct lineage to another club who were one of the inaugural ten teams in the National League when it set up in the 1989/90 season. Dig back through the history of Barnes Hockey Club (see attachment below) and you will come across a critical decision made by the club in 2004: to take on the management of the Dukes Meadows artificial turf pitch in Chiswick, Greater London, which had been used by Hounslow & Ealing Hockey Club. Part of the deal saw Barnes merge with the ladies’ section of Hounslow & Ealing which would also give them National League Division Two status. This merger went ahead in 2005. Barnes HC’s new National League position had come from the old Ealing Ladies’ Hockey Club, before they merged with Hounslow Hockey Club in 2000. So, Ealing Ladies’ HC became Hounslow & Ealing HC, which merged into Barnes HC.

Barnes HC history

Who were Ealing Ladies’ Hockey Club?

Ealing Ladies’ HC were a long-established Middlesex club, not a Surrey club like Barnes. They had a long and prestigious history going back to the 1880s, celebrating their centenary during the 1987/88 season. They were also one of the top clubs in England throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, fielding numerous international players. This success culminated in their winning four national indoor and outdoor championships in the late 1980s. When the National League was set up in 1989, Ealing were one of the first ten teams to join. A more detailed history of the club can be accessed from the button below.

Ealing LHC history

A photograph of a women's hockey team. Players are in two rows, the back row standing and the front row kneeling. The captain in the centre of the front row holds a shield-shaped trophy. The players are wearing navy blue tracksuits, the tracksuit top has a red and yellow chevron across the front and red collars.

Ealing Ladies’ Hockey Club, National League Champions for the third successive season, 1989.

For Barnes HC to have this opportunity to play in the Women’s National League must have seemed like manna from heaven, but in the early days it was hard going. Very few of the former Hownslow & Ealing players made the move over to Barnes and the significant step up in standard was initially a shock to the system. Many of the club’s sides suffered relegation. However, despite an initial relegation, the Ladies’ First Team clung on to their National League status. With the arrival of goalkeeper Katie Martin-Fagg in 2012 and coach Omar Shibli a few years later, things began to turn around setting them on a path to success. It took several years of near misses but this season (2024/2025) Barnes eventually succeeded in reaching the Premier Division. This Barnes team achieved success on the back of their own hard work and skill, but it is appropriate to remember their link to another team’s similar success just over 30 years earlier.

A new dawn for hockey in Ealing

The name Ealing Ladies’ Hockey Club disappeared from the records in 2000, but there is now another Ealing Hockey Club playing in the London Borough.

Jeff Moores and a few colleagues founded the new Ealing HC in 2011 having recognised a lack of opportunities for young players to get good hockey coaching in the west London area. Initially just a club for junior players, it has now grown to field senior men’s and women’s teams as well as having over 450 junior members. The club has more recently gained England Hockey Club Mark status as well as being part of the England Hockey Talent Centre. It has won multiple local community awards for its impact in the Borough.

Jeff approached the former members of the old Ealing LHC to see if the new club could use an adapted version of the old badge for their kit. It is great to see the heritage of Ealing LHC revered in this way – a great synergy between old and new. Who knows what successes this new Ealing hockey club will achieve in the future!