For many, Lockdown was an opportunity to have a ‘clear out’ and The Hockey Museum (THM) has received a tremendous amount of new material as a result.

Despite being closed for a significant part of the year, we received over 100 new collections. Among these:

• The collection of late National League umpire Tarsem Chaggar;
• A gift of master tapes and DVDs of coaching films was received from England international and Olympic coach Gavin Featherstone;
• The remnants of the Hounslow HC collection arrived;
• The doctoral thesis of Joanne Halpin: ‘Will You Walk into our Parlour?’: The Rise of Leagues and their Impact on the Governance of Women’s Hockey in England 1895-1939;
• 23 volumes of Punch managazine containing 23 cartoons of hockey spanning 101 years from 1850 to 1951;
• We received further material from the career of England’s World Cup-winning captain Anita White;
• A loan of material relating to GB goalkeeper Harry Haslam, including a framed portrait painting and his Olympic gold medal; and
• The library that already held nearly 2,000 books has received 40 more during the two lockdowns.

THM’s dedicated band of volunteers have continued to come in whenever we have been allowed to open, cataloguing material and making headway against our backlog.

Anita White’s England blazer from the 1971 International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (IFWHA) World Tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, 1971.

We have made great strides to collate all the magazines held by THM across the various collections, working to create full sets and identify gaps in preparation for forthcoming digitisation projects. We will be putting out appeals for those we are missing, so stay tuned.

THM’s commitment to collections and archiving was confirmed at the recent Trustees’ Meeting, held on Zoom of course, when it was agreed to increase Carli’s role as Collections Officer to three days per week from 1 January. Also, with the number of archives held by THM increasing, it was decided to advertise for a two-days-per-week Archivist to assist progress in this vital area. These appointments will need volunteer support, so if you’re interested in hockey heritage, do please make contact.

Objects from the collection of umpire Tarsem Chaggar.