Field Hockey

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FIELD HOCKEY

Field hockey is the oldest-known ball-and-stick game and is believed to date from the earliest civilizations. Although the exact origin of the game remains unknown, 4,000-year-old drawings found in the tomb at Beni-Hasen in the Nile Valley of Egypt depicted men playing the sport. Throughout the following centuries, variations of the game were played by a spectrum of cultures ranging from Greeks and Romans to Ethiopians and Aztecs. The Arabs, Greeks, Persians, and Romans each had their own versions of hockey. Traces of a stick game played by the Aztec Indians have also been found. Hockey can also be identified with other early games such as hurling and shinty. During the Middle Ages, a French stick game called hoquet was played, and the English word may have derived from this. The sport is referred to as field hockey to distinguish it from the sport of ice hockey.

Modern hockey was developed in the British Isles, but it was not until the first half of the nineteenth century that field hockey became well established. The first club was Blackheath, headquartered in southeast London prior to 1861. The club played on a large piece of open ground with crudely designed sticks and a "ball" that was a solid cube of black rubber. At this time, there were few offensive or defensive tactics involved in the game, and, although Blackheath was the first club, it was Teddington, another London club, that modernized and refined the game by introducing several major variations into hockey, including banning the use of hands or the lifting of sticks above the shoulder. They also began to use a sphere as the ball, instead of the rubber cube. Most important, they instituted the striking circle that was incorporated into the rules of the newly founded Hockey Association in London in 1886.

After modern field hockey had developed in the British Isles in the late nineteenth century, it spread throughout the British Empire. The British army introduced the game to India and throughout the British colonies, leading to the first international competition in 1895. Hockey first appeared on the Olympic program at the 1908 London Games and again in 1920 at Antwerp. The sport was featured on the program at Amsterdam in 1928 and has been an Olympic sport ever since. The call for more international matches led to the introduction of the World Cup (1971), and some of the other major international tournaments include the Asian Cup, Asian Games, European Cup, and Pan American Games. India is the most powerful field hockey nation in Olympic history. Between 1928 and 1956, India won six gold medals and thirty consecutive games. The streak ended in 1960 with a loss to Pakistan in the finals. Field hockey has become an integral part of national sports in both India and Pakistan. By 2003, field hockey was played all over the world by a variety of countries, and it was recognized as the second-largest team sport in the world, just behind soccer.

Although by the twentieth century field hockey was a popular women's sport, it was once considered far too dangerous for female participation. The ball, originally made from rubber, used in field hockey often travels at very high speeds, posing a risk to all players. Goalies are particularly vulnerable because they often must use their entire body to prevent the opposing team from scoring a goal. Therefore, field hockey goalies protect themselves with a shield of plastic armor. Field hockey quickly became popular with women whose previous introduction to sport included the "socially acceptable" outdoor activities of croquette and lawn tennis. With more and more women becoming active in the sport, the liberating game of field hockey earned the dubious title as the only team sport considered proper for women. By 1887, the first women's hockey club appeared in East Mosley, England, and was quickly followed by the creation of the All England Women's Hockey Association in 1889. The sport spread across the Atlantic in 1901, when English physical education instructor Constance Applebee introduced the sport to the United States while attending a seminar at Harvard. Appalled at the parlor games passing for exercise among young American women, Applebee borrowed some sticks and a ball and staged the first hockey exhibition in the United States behind the Harvard gymnasium. The game received an enthusiastic response, and Applebee quickly spread the sport to some of the region's most prestigious women's schools.

Field hockey took its most important step forward in 1924 when the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH), the world governing body for the sport, was founded in Paris under the initiative of Frenchman Paul Léautey. Léautey, who would become the first president of the FIH, was motivated to action following hockey's omission from the program of the 1924 Paris Games. To form the sport's international governing body, Léautey called together representatives from seven national federations; the seven founding members, which represented both men's and women's hockey in their countries, were Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Spain, and Switzerland.

The women's game developed quickly in many countries. For example, by the early 1920s, several colleges and clubs sponsored field hockey teams for women in the United States. The U.S. women's touring field hockey team participated in its first international competition in 1920, and two years later the United States Field Hockey Association was founded for the purpose of promoting and generating enthusiasm for the sport. In 1927, the International Federation of Women's Hockey Associations (IFWHA) was formed. Its founding members were Australia, Denmark, England, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, the United States, and Wales. The IFWHA merged with the FIH in 1982. In many ways, the FIH serves as the guardian of the sport. It works in cooperation with both the national and continental organizations to ensure consistency and unity in hockey around the world. The FIH not only regulates the sport, but also is responsible for its development and promotion so as to guarantee a secure future for the field hockey.

See also: Ice Hockey, Olympics, Women's Leisure Lifestyles