This year is a big one for Cirencester Hockey Club because the ladies’ section are celebrating their 45th anniversary and the men are celebrating their 40th.

The two sections merged in the mid-1980s and it has proved to be a very successful alliance because the club are now in rude health. Throw in a thriving youth section and it’s easy to see why there are so many smiling faces around the club.

Ann Hart is one of the club’s longer serving members. She joined in 1987 and still plays for the club’s 3rd XI.

“The two clubs had just amalgamated when I joined,” she said. “The men were playing on a grass pitch at Cirencester Cricket Club and the ladies were playing on grass at Deer Park. Nobody plays hockey on grass now.”

Indeed they don’t. Cirencester now play the majority of their games on the astroturf at Deer Park although they also play at the Royal Agricultural University.

And they need plenty of pitches because they have four men’s league teams, a men’s vets team, four ladies’ league teams, and under-16 teams for boys and girls as well as all the junior teams.

And it is that junior section that continues to ensure that the club remain so strong.

“The club absolutely depend on it,” said Hart. “The clubs without a junior section tend to be the ones that are struggling. The youngsters are the absolute lifeblood of our club.

“What’s so nice is that when they go off to university we now see a good number coming back, we’ve built up a loyalty to the club.”

And loyalty is something that Hart knows all about because she has certainly gone above and beyond for the club over the past 30-plus years.

A former 1st XI captain – her husband Jeff captained the men’s 1st XI – she remains a big part of the club although she is not their longest serving member.

“Sarah Ryan was at the club before me,” she said. “She started in the early 80s and still plays for the 4ths, she’s co-captain. And for the men John Partridge has been at the club since the early days.

“Ian Harvey has as well, it was Ian who first started the club’s juniors and still runs them. There are quite a few players who started in the 80s.”

And while there is no substitute for experience, one of the great things about hockey is that it truly is a sport for all ages.

“Our youngest juniors start at six, our oldest player played up till 75,” said Hart. “We have even seen three generations of the Poole family in the same game at an end of season club match.”

Hart started the ladies’ 3rd and 4th XI – “Once I get dropped from a side I start up another team so that I can still get a game,” she laughed – and the team are an important part of the club because they provide a pathway for some of the club’s younger players.

“We’re a nice blend of older players with nous and younger players with legs,” she said. “It does the younger ones a lot of good to start in a lower team and learn to play with the adults – for self-confidence as much as the hockey.”

Not that all of them start in the lower teams.

“We have juniors playing in all the senior teams,” Hart continued. “Most will have played partly in a lower team, but one or two go straight into a higher team, it depends when they’re ready.

“The under-16s girls now train with the ladies 3rds and 4ths which works very well, and really helps with the transition into senior hockey.”

The club also have a ladies’ team that compete in the Chippenham Summer League and Hart continued: “That tends to be largely first team players but they will include quite a few youngsters, and those youngsters tend to fly the following season.”

Hart is very much about the present and the future but ask her for one of her career highlights and she’ll go all the way back to the late 1980s.

“It was the Gloucestershire Clubs tournament in Cheltenham in 1989,” she said. “It was in the days before leagues and there’d be about 20 clubs entered.

“It was done on a round-robin with the top team from each group going through to the semi-finals.

“We were considered one of the weaker teams and were in the same group as East Glos who were the favourites. But we drew 0-0 with them, beat the other teams in our group and went through on goal difference.

“We beat Lansdown in the semi-final and then drew 0-0 with Cheltenham in the final so we shared the trophy.”

In those days Cirencester’s ladies wore blue but these days they play in emerald green which is the same as the men – and handy when they are playing mixed hockey!

And mixed hockey is one of the things that Hart likes so much about the sport that has been such a big part of her life.

“The whole family can play in one team if you want to, it’s very sociable” she said. “That doesn’t really happen in other team sports. It’s a great game, it’s a game for people of all ages.

“And it’s so fast, games really flow – compared to football.”

And the game of hockey is really flowing at Cirencester, as Hart says: “We’re punching well above our weight.”

That’s certainly true because the ladies’ 1st XI are pushing for promotion from North Division of the West Clubs’ Women’s League back to Premier 2 while the men’s 1st XI are also looking to step up from De Cymru & The Marches 1.
And the men, like the ladies, have a proud history.
“They reached the national final of the HA Vase in the 2003/04 season,” said Hart.
The club will be holding a dinner/dance or ball in the autumn to mark their special year when all players, past and present, will be welcome.

“We’d love to hear from any past players,” said Hart.

Contact hart.ann1@btinternet.com for details.