As the clocks go back The Hockey Museum continues to move forward. Grab a cuppa and enjoy the read…
What an exciting and successful summer for The Hockey Museum! In early July we went into partnership with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) to support them in one of their stated aims of preserving and celebrating the world-wide heritage of hockey. We were also successful in a bid to the FIH for funding to employ a Collections Management Officer (CMO) who will lead our work to gain Museum Accreditation status in early 2016. We advertised earlier in the autumn and hope to have someone in post by late November. The FIH has also supported us in a project to help define an approach to the task of developing a worldwide network of hockey archives and researchers that will enable us to collate and publish an authoritative history of our game. A challenging task in itself but one that we’re looking forward to taking on. Look out for the advert in the near future.
August saw us put on our biggest Museum Exhibition stand to date at the European Hockey Championships held at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. With 16 men’s and women’s national teams competing, it was the biggest hockey event that England Hockey (EH) has staged and over 35,000 spectators attended over the 10 days. The Museum had a very smart Exhibition stand and we were able to display a wide selection of items from our collection including hockey outfits from different eras of hockey fashion, a selection of original ‘hockey in art’ items, a display of 125 years of Wimbledon LHC, original archive material from the beginning of the 20th century, displays of pin badges, stamps and postcards and the ever popular range of old hockey sticks and balls. We also had a large screen TV where we showed cine-film footage of coaching sessions and matches from the mid 20th century.
One of the biggest impacts we made at the event came from the 60 metre (yes, 60 metres!) Hockey Timeline that was displayed along one whole wall of the Spectator Plaza. The series of images over 19 panels represent key points in the development of hockey from the Egyptians in 2000BC to the present day. The Timeline was a real show stopper and was designed and produced by a team from THM and EH that was lead by Martin Ellis, one of the Museum volunteers. The whole timeline can now be seen on this website.
Another new innovation for us was to include an Oral Histories booth as part of our stand. With the support of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, we have recently started an Oral Histories project and Evelyn Somerville, our volunteer lead, managed to complete 17 interviews with people with a range of hockey backgrounds: from Leandro Negre (the current FIH President) to Monica Pickersgill (the former AEWHA President); from Hamish Jameson (a current FIH Umpire) to Robert Adams who at 85 is the oldest known hockey player. A great start to what will be a very exciting project for us.
Over the whole event, we had in excess of 4500 visitors to our stand. They were of all ages and came from around the UK, across Europe and even some from Australia and the USA. We made some excellent new contacts and promises of some fascinating new archive and artefact material. People are obviously expecting to see us at these events as we received over 20 small collections. It was particularly fascinating to hear some of the stories sparked by the sight of a photograph or a match programme or kit from the 1930s. We heard about four generations of hockey players from Spain from the current ladies captain on the pitch that day, through two other generations who were there supporting and another one at home watching the TV – we saw photos of them all. Many more stories and images can be found on THM Facebook page.
Back in Woking, the work of the volunteers continues apace this autumn as more archive material and fascinating stories continue to arrive every week. Look out for new stories and features as we post these on our newly launched website. There will be regular ‘Hockey in 50 Objects’ and ‘Hockive Facts’ features as well as the usual News items and other feature articles. Please get in touch with Mike Smith, the Curator, via our contact form if you have any items or news stories that you would like to share with us.
Our next event at the Museum will be on Thursday 5 November 2015 when Janet Beverley, a former Australian international, will be speaking on the subject of “Australian Women’s Hockey: from England with Love”. Janet is currently registered for a PhD at the University Of Queensland and will be over in England spending a week at The Hockey Museum as part of her research. The talk will start at 2.00pm and all are invited to attend; click here for more details. Please contact Katie Dodd via our contact form if you are interested in attending.
Katie Dodd, Chair of THM Trustees
