About

Crowborough Hockey Club welcomes players of all ages and abilities into our family, friendly environment. We offer competitive yet enjoyable team's, ranging from our 3 men's and 4 women's teams to our 2 development squads and thriving junior section. We're proud to have been highly commended as Emerging Club of the Year at the England Hockey Awards 2024/25 which highlights our efforts as a community to succeed as a club. Thanks to the generous support of our members, fundraising efforts, Beacon Academy and local district council we where able to work together to afford to refurbish the pitch early last season which has been a magnet for gaining new members. We're excited to see our club grow and continue to achieve great things this coming season.

Club History

Crowborough Hockey Club was formed in December 1968 at an inaugural meeting at the Wolfe Recreation Ground, Crowborough by a small collective of hockey-loving enthusiasts. 16 players joined the first practice game at the Wolfe on Sunday 18th January 1969.
In attendance were Tony Gliddon, Brian Ware, M Vidler, Derek Prangnell, Doug Treacher, D Eldritt, D Jeggo, Peter Barford, R Smith, P Lynch, J Saunders, D Green, B Nye and M Stewart. The first competitive match was played against Crawley on 25th January with a final score of 4-4.

By mid February the club had grown and Crowborough Hockey Club was able to field 2 men's sides, with a total of 32 playing members. Initially the teams took a while to ‘bed-in' and after a significant loss or two, goals started to appear on the scorecards. In these early games goal scorers included the likes of John Schumacher, Peter Barford, Tony Gliddon, Brian Nye and Alan Patterson. An "able and spectacular goalkeeper", Gary May joined the club as a relatively inexperienced player. And it was at this stage that our much treasured Ron Easton was making his appearance as an "enthusiastic winger", making many a dash up the right wing, and seemingly stressing the opposition defence.

The first Annual General Meeting of the club was held at the end of their first season, on Monday 28th April 1969 at the W.I. hall in Crowborough. They celebrated a club membership of 41 players. In his report the secretary, Derek Prangnell wrote "Such has been the enthusiasm that the ladies have also formed their section, and their membership is now 23".

It was at this meeting that the club, currently playing in white shirts and blue shorts, decided they needed a more distinctive colour to set them apart from the rest of the teams in the County. It was then that our infamous orange was born! Or tangerine, to be more precise.