Harrogate Hockey Mens History
Records show that there was an active mens hockey club in Harrogate as early as 1913/14 with J Waddington appearing for Yorkshire in 1927. Little is known about the Club at that time apart from....
Harrogate Hockey Ladies History
Harrogate Ladies Hockey Club pre-dates the second world war and there are records showing that the Harrogate Athenians Ladies Hockey Club were playing in the 1913/14 season....
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one of the oldest in the country
Our club is one of the oldest in the country, having been in existence since the early part of the twentieth century.
THE EARLY YEARS
Records show that there was an active mens hockey club in Harrogate as early as 1913/14 with J Waddington appearing for Yorkshire in 1927. Little is known about the Club at that time apart from the fact that they had fixtures from October to April and played on a pitch adjacent to the County cricket ground. The colours were red and black shirts with white shorts.
The present club was not officially formed until the autumn of 1949 following an advert in the Harrogate Advertiser inviting prospective members to a meeting at the Victoria Hotel. A committee was formed with the brothers Southcott as joint secretaries. Games were played on The Stray with the odd game at St Aidan's School or opposite St George’s Cricket Ground.
THE MERGER
Sometime in 1950/51 an amalgamation took place between Harrogate and the Air Ministry hockey clubs, which resulted in Alan Druett joining the club along with several distinguished service players.
The early minutes of these formative years make very interesting reading. The AGM held at the Elephant and Castle in Knaresborough make it clear that finding suitable playing areas was always very difficult. The comments about the poor and very wet pitch at the Railway Athletic ground at Starbeck begs the question as to why the club continued playing there at all. The comment that "the pitch was appalling but the company in the Railway Hotel was interesting" may supply the clues.
After the amalgamation, the club moved to Knaresborough Cricket Ground in 1953 to play on the notorious sloping pitch with a "midden" in the bottom corner. About this time two new members joined the club, both of whom would have a considerable influence on the club over the next 50 years, namely Bob Nash and Charlie Sproull. Players from Ashville School, such as Mike Hawkins, Derek Mitchell, Ted Crabtree and Adrian Gange became members in the mid 50's. It is said that Bob Nash played with great skill but had a tendency to miss open goals by putting the ball over the bar (some things never change). At this time Peter Southcott was Club Secretary and a young Charles Sproull always addressed Mr Southcott as "Sir". This continued for many years even when the club were on tour (some things do change).
Meetings were held at the Elephant and Castle, Knaresborough as Chris Wellington, a playing member was the landlord. About this time J.C. Scales became Club President, he being the grandfather of John Scales the Tottenham Hotspur soccer player.
THE SIXTIES
In the early sixties the Club moved to a pitch in Beechwood Grove next door to the ICI site, now Hornbeam Park, Prominent players in this era included Tony Beck, Peter Coulter and David Lancaster, the latter playing for Yorkshire and the North. Alick Taylor now residing in Solihull also joined in 1960 and Robert Lawson, another old Ashvillian, in 1962.
A further amalgamation took place in 1965, when Dacre Hockey Club merged with Harrogate resulting in the formation of a third team. This brought into the club such distinguished players as Roger Gill, Charlie Webster (only Phil Sharpe had a better eye for a ball) and the incomparable T Crawfurd-Porter who was to play a significant role in the next stage of the club's development. The Smiths Arms at Beckwithshaw became the new headquarters. Before that the club rented a pitch from the Harrogate Corporation at Harlow Hill.
THE STABLES
During the 1969/70 season the Club rented an old stables and hay loft, situated behind the pitch at Harlow Hill from Dr Crawfurd Porter. A small group of members then converted this into a clubhouse and changing rooms which became the first permanent headquarters of Harrogate Hockey Club. The Club expanded with the start of a fourth team.
The season 1970/71 saw the start of the annual Crawford-Porter Tournament, which originally took place on May 16th and was organised by Adrian Gange, the current first team captain. In those days this was a men's first XI tournament usually completed in one day.
Dr Crawfurd Porter was appointed President in 1971/72 which was the start of a long and beneficial association with the Club. In early 1973 he generously granted the club a 99 year lease on the Stables clubhouse at a nominal fixed rent of £1,000 per annum. This helped the Club in deciding to undertake its first major development later in that year with the start of the building of two squash courts at a cost of £10,000 on land adjacent to the Stables clubhouse.
Finally after the completion of the squash courts in 1974 the club became the Harrogate Hockey and Squash Club with Derek Mitchell as its first chairman. Peter Southcott took over as Chairman in 1978, having already been secretary since 1949, and remained in that position until 1999 when the hockey club moved from The Stables to the new headquarters at Granby School, an unbroken period of service to the club of 50 years.
In 1974/75 the Club’s fifth team started. The developments from 1975 onwards were really directed into improving the playing standards of the club and increasing the membership. This was largely the result of the introduction of Yorkshire League Hockey for the first XI in 1978 followed by all the teams over the next decade.
In order to meet the increasing demand for squash courts, in 1978 the Club built a glass backed squash court costing £10,000 as much as the other two courts in 1973. Also in 1978 the Club purchased 10 acres of land at Bluecote Wood, near Beckwithshaw, which were converted into two hockey pitches and a cricket square. In 1984 Pannal Ash Cricket Club joined the Club which benefited the club as they maintained the Bluecote facility in the summer months when little hockey was played.
Despite many hours of work, under the guidance of Martin Minett, and considerable expense the grounds at the Clubhouse and at Bluecote, still proved difficult to maintain and the arrival of the shale pitches at the Army Apprentices College, Rossett School and Granby School was a lifeline to a club with five men's sides, two ladies' sides all trying to play on very wet grass pitches. Eventually the first XI found that an astro-turf pitch was the answer, but the nearest ground was in Bradford on which they played all of the league games until the development of the first astro-turf pitch in Harrogate at Rossett School.
GRANBY DEVELOPMENT
The final move for this club was the development of their new synthetic turf pitch in a partnership with North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Granby High School, which became available in 1999 some 50 years after the Club was reformed after the second world war.