The Torbay Easter Hockey Festival returns to the English Riviera for the 71st time this April, following a very successful post-pandemic event in 2022 (note the witty festival pennant). Along with the festivals taking place in Blackpool, Canterbury, Folkestone and Skegness, Torbay is maintaining the historic tradition of an Easter hockey festival.
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| Left: Souvenir programme from the first Torbay Easter Hockey Festival in 1951. Right: Pennant from the 2022 Festival with its witty nod to its two absent years caused by the COvid-19 pandemic. |
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Taking place from Good Friday through to Easter Monday, on two local pitches at Clennon Valley Leisure Centre, Paignton and Torquay Girls Grammar School, ten teams have entered to date, maintaining the level of entries seen from 2017. One of the most notable of the features enjoyed by the Torbay Festival is the remarkable loyalty of the participating clubs – eight of the ten will have attended for at least sixty-one festivals, with the average attendance of sixty years.
Although an eleven-a-side men’s festival, women players are encouraged to supplement the team. Youngsters also participate; indeed, the Festival does not ban under 18s, as do some other some festivals around the country (both at Easter and in the summer).
The Torbay Festival is semi-competitive. There are two cups to be claimed: the Bill Stickells Cup for highest scoring team over the weekend and the Redcliffe Cup for fair play (judged by teams’ opponents). Last year, the Buffaloes (Smethwick HC) won the Stickells Cup with 42 goals and the Redcliffe Cup was awarded to the Oddfellows, the only ever-present team.
Normally, the Festival would be opened by a flag raising. The tradition was started at the sixth Torbay Festival in 1956, where the ceremony took place on Good Friday morning at Victoria Park, Paignton.
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The flag raising ceremony at Torbay Hockey Festival, around 1986. Festival President, David Powell, is flanked by the Torbay Mayoress and the Mayor, with Tony Forward, Festival Chairman on the latter’s left. In his forty years of raising the flag, David Powell never got to understand the mechanism involved, as illustrated in the photograph. Image credit: Mike Carter, Festival Historian and Archivist. |
In 1989, the opening was moved to the Clennon Valley Leisure Centre and carried on to 2019. In 2022, the plan was to once more to open the Festival traditionally but, on arrival, the gathering was faced by a hole where the flag pole should have been – the Council had removed the pole without informing the Festival Committee! This led to the impromptu alternative flag raising ceremony pictured below.
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The new form of flag raising ceremony in 2022. Image credit: Mike Carter. |
Torbay Festival 2023
In 2023, there are no Council dignitaries to lend support to the Festival President, Ms Nicole Amil and Chairman James Carter.
The Committee is keen to attract another two or three teams to maximise pitch use and to this end have pegged the entry fee to the pre-pandemic level.
You can find out more about Torbay Hockey Festival, one of the few festivals continuing the historic Easter tradition, on their dedicated website where you can also register to bring your team to the English Riviera!
Easter Festival | Torbay Easter Hockey Festival | Torbay (torbayhockeyfestival.org.uk)
Festivals Research Project
Meanwhile, The Hockey Museum’s research into historic festivals continues. For more on this project, click below.
By Mike Carter
Torbay Festival Archivist and volunteer with The Hockey Museum.
