About Hockey

Skills & Tactics

In this section you will find videos from England Hockey providing instructions and demonstrations of key skills and team tactics. Select the links from the menu on the right to watch the videos.

Watch, practice, execute. This is how we should all be doing it!

History of Hockey

So where did this fine sport come from? Read on for a full(ish) account...

It all began a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far...... well, more accurately the exact origins of hockey are not really known, but the wonderful concept of two teams plus sticks and a ball has been around for a while. The earliest version of the sport yet discovered was in the The Nile Valley, Egypt, where archeologists have found evidence (see below) dating back about 4,000 years, to 2050 BC. Different versions of the game were played by the Aztecs, Arabs, Romans, Greeks, and Persians. Hockey also has roots in the Celtic games of Shinty and Hurling.

The name hockey is thought to be derived from the French name for a game played in the middle ages; hoquet. The sport is, alas, now frequently referred to as field hockey to differentiate it from all the versions; ice hockey, ball hockey, octopush etc; that have sprung up over time.

Modern hockey can be traced from the first club, Blackheath, founded in London, England in 1849, and referred to as "hockie". Initially, crude sticks were used and the 'ball' was a rubber cube. The rules were further defined by another London club, Teddington, and their contributions to the game included the use of a ball and not allowing the stick to be raised above shoulder height. The popularity of hockey spread throughout the British Empire, and the first international was held in 1885. The Hockey Association was formed in 1886.

The growth of the women's game was not far behind, with the sport being favoured by women who were bored with less energetic games. Despite hockey's original reputation as being too dangerous it became one of the earliest strenuous games for women. The first women's club to be founded was East Moseley, England (1887), with the All England Women's Hockey Association forming in the 1889. Women's hockey was taken to the USA in the summer of 1901 by Constance Applebee who studied at Harvard College.

The International Hockey Federation was created in 1924 with representatives from Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Spain and Switzerland coming together under the Presidency of Frenchman Paul Léautey. This was a direct response to the failure to include hockey in the 1924 Paris Olympics because there was no international body for the sport. Australia, Denmark, England, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, the USA and Wales formed the International Federation of Women's Hockey Association (IFWHA) in 1927. The two organisations merged in 1982 to form the FIH which now comprises 119 member countries.