History

The club was originally founded in 1899. It has reformed twice; after the first World War and again in 1947 after the Second World War. The club has grown steadily from the 1960's, initially from supply from local secondary schools, but since the early 1980's from our own Mini-hockey Scheme.

Youth Development :

Our Club relied heavily on the local schools to provide its new members until the early 1980s. It became clear that school sport was in the decline, especially for minority sports such as Hockey.

In an effort to address the perceived problem, two members of the Club decided to run what was then a new "Mini-Hockey" scheme primarily for youngsters from the age of 7, but willing to take on any child physically able to held a stick and enjoy the sport.

Right from the start, the scheme was kept open to both sexes and the "cost" of participation was kept to an absolute minimum encouraging as many as possible to have a go. We have attracted boys and girls from Chesterfield and a substantial area of North Derbyshire since that initial scheme.

The scheme has continued every year since then, with numbers occasionally exceeding 50. We have coached many youngsters who have gone on to represent their County, the Midlands and even their Country through our links with the County Associations. On occasions, 75% of the Derbyshire Under 18 squad have been from our Club.

But coaching for excellence is only part of our aim. Our principal objective is to persuade more youngsters to have a go, to enjoy themselves and hopefully to continue to play the sport into their adult life.

We have achieved sponsorship at times during the years from the Sports Council (originally, to help fund the set up costs of sticks, balls and goalkeeping kit), from the TSB Bank, from our Local Council and from a local firm, Clarence Industrial Services, who continued to offer support throughout our existence until thier closure. More recently, we has been assisted by grants from regional and national sports funding organisation. This, together with the totally voluntary coaching, has helped to keep down the cost of participation.

It is only over the last 10+ years that we have enjoyed the real benefits of artificial turf for our sport. It is particularly important for those youngsters, new to the sport, to play in such ideal conditions. Their development is rapid and the skill levels achieved very high compared with what could be achieved on the rough old grass pitches we previously had to use.

We have become very much involved with St Mary's School and with the use of the pitch for taster sessions and coaching for youngsters from that school and others both mid-week as well as at weekends.

The 2009/2010 season marked the enhancement of Chesterfield Hockey Club's mini-hockey scheme with the assitance of coaches from Staveley Ladies.

Our junior-hockey scheme is the foundation for our future and is once again returning to the success it enjoyed a few years ago. It is now led by Mark Fonseca with regular help from several other adult Club members.