The Hockey Museum’s (THM) research into England men’s and women’s international statistical records has cranked up a notch in recent months with the Working Group moving into a new phase to digitise England match and player data, and our researchers visiting the International Hockey Federation (FIH) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland to hunt for missing match sheets.

The Hockey Museum has undertaken meticulous research to create complete records of Great Britain (GB) matches and players for the very first time – no such record existed previously. The creation of this definitive dataset allowed us to assign unique player legacy numbers to every GB hockey athlete. Working in partnership with GB Hockey, we awarded honours caps to 441 former GB players or their descendants (of the 581 eligible), emblazoned with their player legacy number and their total number of international caps.

Great Britain honours cap presentations at Lee Valley in 2022.
Picture: GB Caps before the presentation
WORLDSPORTPICS; COPYRIGHT WILL PALMER (courtesy of GB Hockey)

Our focus has now turned to completing the England records to the same standard. This has and will take considerably longer because the matches go back much further in time than GB and the regularity of matches is more frequent than GB. We are targeting the EuroHockey Championships being held in London in 2027 as the date to begin awarding England honours caps off the back of a verified England dataset. A tough target, but one we think we can achieve.

Additional research is still needed to fill the numerous gaps in our records and to establish the facts of all matches to determine what counts as an official England match. To this end, our researchers flew out to Lausanne to interrogate the FIH archives. Volunteers Sue Lane (known as Hobbit) and Marcus Wardle (THM archivist) shared their week away with statisticians from the other Home Nations who are conducting similar statistical research: Alan Veitch (on behalf of the Scottish Hockey Heritage Group) and Steve Knight (on behalf of Hoci Cymru).

History and heritage researchers from the Home Nations visit the FIH.
From left to right: Steve Knight (Hoci Cymru), Sue Lane (THM statistician), Alan Veitch (on behalf of the Scottish Hockey Heritage Group) and Marcus Wardle (THM archivist)

It proved to be a fruitful visit. Prior to the trip, the FIH had arranged for an intern to conduct an audit of their archive who helpfully listed all archive boxes in the FIH basement and the matches contained in each box. Our researchers were able to request boxes ready for when they arrived to begin their searches. As well as finding many missing, not-yet-digitised match sheets (which until recently we understood the FIH did not hold), the team also got their ‘steps’ in following the indulgences of the festive season by marching uphill from their hotel to the FIH offices every day!

Sue returned from Switzerland with 64 new England match sheets for the men and 88 match sheets for the women. Steve (Wales) requested information on 80 tournaments and returned with sheets for 56 matches. Alan (Scotland) requested match sheets for 129 men’s and 93 women’s matches and came away with 131 (66 men and 65 women).

While the FIH don’t have any records of the non-tournament matches we are looking for, or any match sheets prior to 1981, the records we did find have significantly reduced the number of matches we now need to find player information for. The Working Group will now be using a range of approaches to locate the missing data.

During our week in Lausanne, the FIH arranged for us to visit the Olympic Study Centre as well as a tour of the Olympic Museum.

The whole trip was a great success with the best outcome being the co-operation and bonds formed between all parties. The FIH rolled out the red carpet for us and they have invited us back if we ever need to revisit. Our thanks to Andre Oliveira, Senior Academy Manager at the FIH, for his excellent hospitality.

Researcher volunteers from the Home Nations’ heritage programmes look through records at the FIH offices in Lausanne, Switzerland.