History
Club Info 6 of 6

6. History


Welcome to Sheffield Hockey Club, one of the oldest clubs in the country and the largest in South Yorkshire.

Sheffield Hockey Club is one of the oldest Hockey Club's in the country, playing their first recorded game of hockey on 29 January 1898. Various home grounds were used in the Sheffield area until the purchase of Abbeydale Park in 1919 where Sheffield Hockey Club has played ever since.

Abbeydale Park became the first private sports club to lay a synthetic hockey pitch in 1989. This was only the third such pitch to be laid in Yorkshire at that time. After 15 years of hard use the original sand based pitch was replaced in 2004 with a synthetic sand-dressed watered pitch but in 2013 the distinctive blue and pink pitch from the 2012 London Olympics was relocated to Abbeydale.

Sheffield Ladies Hockey Club, who have also played at Abbeydale Park since the 1920's, amalgamated with Sheffield Hockey Club in 2002 and in 2004 a playing relationship was established with Sheffield Hallam University with both men's and women's teams playing as Sheffield Hallam in national, regional and county leagues.

Sheffield Hockey Club has long supported junior development within the Club which was strengthened in 2005 becoming only the 50th Hockey Club in the country to attain Clubs First Accreditation, England Hockey's kite mark scheme. In 2010 Sheffield Hockey Club re-affirmed their commitment to providing a safe, effective and child-friendly hockey environment, successfully gaining Club's First Accreditation once more, and then in 2019 achieved the prestigious ClubMark accreditation.

Throughout its history Sheffield Hockey Club has played an important part within the local community, the club structure has been built to support participation and grass root sport in addition to the performance teams. In 2005, Sheffield Hockey Club employed a part-time Hockey Development Officer and to this day maintains this pivotal role, fulfilling our commitment to the development of the sport within our region.

Twice the Ladies' first team have gained promotion to the English Hockey League. Unfortunately, each success was followed by immediate relegation back to the North Premier League. The Men's first team secured promotion to the England Hockey League back in 2005. They came through a relegation playoff in 2007 and steadily pressed for promotion. Three second place finishes in the North Conference was followed by winning the league and then gaining promotion to the Premier Division through the playoffs in 2013.

During 2014 Sheffield entertained the top clubs in the country but narrowly missed surviving their first season and currently play in EHL Division 1 North (just below prem).