Surrey Old Boys Hockey Club

Surrey Old Boys (circa '1923')

The Surrey Old Boys Team started as a drunken conversation at the annual Old Boys vs. The University game in 2006. The conversation had gone on quite often in the past and basically was a gripe that although a lot of us old Uni Boys still lived around Guildford, none of us actually played hockey together and none played in Guildford itself. The solution, create a team of our own. Everyone expected the idea to die a death, like it had done every other time, however Conan (our chairman) actually got things moving and ploughed on with the plan.

Due to a last minute withdrawal from the League, there was a spare space just waiting for a new club to jump in and take it up, and so, in early July 2006 the club was born. A committee was formed to sort out the complex things like what colours to wear (Orange, as no one else was wearing it which meant we could save money by not buying an away kit), where the finances were coming from and most importantly, where we could steal players from.

Getting players initially looked quite tricky, up until three weeks before the first pre-season friendly we only had seven committed players. However, on that first friendly we took 13 players and the current squad it standing at about 16. In fact, the recruitment has been so successful that we are actively looking at putting out a second team next season (so all playing applications are welcome!).

Our standard of play is fairly high and the initial aim is to get promoted from Surrey 1st XII Div 2 in our first season. After an dodgy initial start we found our feet an won the league against what has proven to be some very strong opposition. Hopefully, we'll keep up our winning streak!.

Of course, we're not only focused on the hockey, there's always drinking to be done and the team can often be found going over the days game (with a couple of beers or perhaps a civilised glass of sherry) in the Varsity Center on a Saturday afternoon and all visitors are welcome although it make take a while for you to get used to some of the drinking game rules....

Club Firsts

As we are a new club we need some pretty instant history. As a result we've recorded all our club firsts, the good and the not so good.....