From Entrepreneurial Origins to Professional Museum: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Field Hockey’s Sporting Heritage at The Hockey Museum, England

Abstract

Founded in Woking, England, in 2011, The Hockey Museum (THM) set out to achieve something unprecedented. That is, the bringing together of objects and archives that collectively chronicle the national history and development of field hockey in England, the country from which ‘modern’, codified field hockey originated before spreading globally. Formed from the personal collections of its founders and heritage material from the defunct English Hockey Association, THM has since adopted an increasingly international collecting and research remit courtesy of the involvement of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and grown rapidly in scale and professionalism. Its collection is a unique and culturally significant sporting and social history resource – the only museum for field hockey in the world. Drawing on case studies of other museums and the wider historiography of sport museums and sport heritage to contextualize THM’s evolution across three temporary premises, the author explores the entrepreneurial genesis of THM’s founding, including formative, short-lived iterations in the 1980s, before looking to the future. Addressing an identified gap in the available literature, the author examines how THM’s journey and the people involved in its development have fashioned an unusual, seemingly contradictory sport museum operating model, that is worthy of documentation and practitioner introspection.