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.