Field hockey's eleven-a-side game left English schools for the world
Two teams of eleven—ten outfield players and a goalkeeper—chase a ball with curved sticks on grass, watered turf, or synthetics. The modern code grew in nineteenth-century English public schools; the International Hockey Federation now oversees a global sport often just called hockey.
North Americans specify field hockey to distinguish ice versions; Swedes and Finns use landhockey or maahockey for the same reason. Grass pitches have become rare as artificial surfaces sped the game. Indoor hockey is played on synthetic courts or hardwood, and a beach version on sand.
Wooden sticks have largely given way to blends of carbon fibre, fibreglass and aramid as synthetics grew cheaper. Stick-and-ball games are ancient: records hint at play in Egypt and Persia around 2000 BC, a Greek image dates to about 510 BC, the Daur of Inner Mongolia have played beikou for roughly 1,000 years, and Chilean natives of the sixteenth century played chueca. The first known club formed at Blackheath in south-east London in 1849, and Teddington Hockey Club shaped the modern game by adding the striking circle and swapping a rubber cube for a ball. The Hockey Association followed in 1876.
Hockey appeared at the 1908 and 1920 Olympics, was dropped in 1924, prompting seven continental European nations to found the FIH, and returned in 1928. India won all five games that year without conceding and took gold from 1932 to 1956 and again in 1964 and 1980, while Pakistan won in 1960, 1968 and 1984. Artificial turf from the early 1970s sped play up and, being too costly for developing countries, ended their dominance. Women's hockey began at British schools and universities; the Molesey Ladies club dates from 1887, and in the United States Constance Applebee introduced the sport with a 1901 tour of the Seven Sisters colleges.
Source: Field hockey
