Queen's Hockey 125th Anniversary
125 Years of Hockey at Queen’s
On 19 September 1898, The Ulster Branch admitted Queen’s College Hockey club into its membership, which later became a University club. In 1912, our Men’s club lifted the Irish Senior Cup for the first time. In 1981, Queen’s lifted the Irish Senior Cup for the third time, captained by Peter McCabe. Whose son, Scott is our current Men’s 1st XI Captain, who recently lifted the Ulster Premier League trophy for the 2022/2023 season.
During Hockey's long history there has been no shortage of Club successes, along with creating both first class players and students. However, similary to current times – as Queen’s is a closed club, player’s move on after their time at University, allowing a new batch of talented players to enter the club but this means there is always a large turnover of players annually. Currently, Queen’s Hockey have 7 teams – still representing in the traditional colours of Blue, Green and White.
When Simon Bell took over as Women’s Head Coach in 2007, our Women’s section grew from strength to strength. The 1st XI squad were promoted into the Ulster Premier League in 2010 were they have remained ever since. Both performance squads have won Premier League titles (2019 Women’s Club, 2023 Men’s club) in recent years and we will continue to drive for success across all the rest of our performance, development and participation teams. Our Hockey Academy set up in 2014, helps to further support our young talented athletes through the Elite Athlete Programme and Hockey Academy scholarships. More recently Queen’s have invested in a Full-time Hockey Development Officer and 2 new artificial pitches (a water-based and sand-dressed pitches), we foresee great things to come for Queen’s Hockey.
Our 125th Anniversary was celebrated on Saturday 3rd June, with a black tie dinner in the Great Hall, Queen’s Lanyon Building. Our Master of Ceremonies for the evening was Arron Armstrong, a former Queen’s Hockey Alumni who studied BA Hons Politics at the University between 1995-1999 who is now a broadcast journalist. Our Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Simon Bell, Women’s Head Coach for the past 16 years. Simon has been an instrumental figure not only to Queen’s Hockey, but in Hockey in Ireland. Simon has been a key driver to the success for Hockey at Queen’s University and we feel this is most deserving. He will receive our newly designed Hockey Blazer, which we hope he wears with pride.
Below is a quote from Club President Donald Burden.
‘For 125 years Queen’s Hockey Club has made a significant and very positive contribution to the wider student experience at Queens University and to the sport of hockey at both a local and national level. Many generations of former students have fond memories of their student days when they represented the University on the playing field. Queen’s hockey players, past and present, are looking forward to celebrating this historic milestone.’
For more images of the night click HERE
Men's Hockey 1st XI (1971-72) Winners of the Irish Senior Cup, Ulster Senior Cup and Mauritius Cup.
Back row (L-R): P. Marshall, J. McDonough, R. Finlay, N. Crawford, S. Sweeney
Front row (L-R): P. Anderson, J. Clarke, T Gregg (Captain), B. Crymble (President), N. Dunlop
Inset: N. Quinn and N. Menary
Ladies Hockey 1st XI (1961-62) Winners of the Chilean Cup during what was a golden era for Queen’s LHC.
Back row (L-R): M. McDonough, D. Clarke, P. Patterson, J. Carnaghan, W. Thornton, A. Mullin, R. Eccles
Front row (L-R): E. Moore, J. Buick, L. Taggart (Captain), R. Biggart