A
BIT OF HISTORY ABOUT GRAMMAR-WINDSOR
HOCKEY CLUB
The Club was formed in 1985
with the amalgamation of two
pre-existing clubs.
On the men's side was GRAMMAR
OLD BOYS HOCKEY CLUB
On the women's side was WINDSOR
LADIES HOCKEY CLUB
GRAMMAR
OLD BOYS HOCKEY CLUB
was founded by Bill Ahlers
and a group of friends, all
ex Grammar School pupils.
With the assistance of Mr
Joe Coop (the Grammar School
Master in charge of hockey),
and with some Mt Albert Grammar
boys who were enlisted, the
first Grammar Old Boys team
took to the field in 1932,
and so the Club started.
The first Secretary was J
W Fielder, and his son Clive
was playing for the Club up
until four years ago. Subscriptions
were set at $1.50 a year (very
cheap you might think, but
an 18 year old working in
a warehouse earned the princely
sum of $1.05 a week!) The
Club had early success winning
it's first trophy in 1933
- The Harvard Cup, for coming
second on points in the annual
Kings Birthday Tournament.
Points were awarded not only
for hockey, but for running
races held in the lunch break.
Two years later in 1935 the
Club fielded it's first Senior
(Premier) team. Many of the
sons of original members Doug
Anderson, Charlie Dare and
Garth Twigden played for the
Club until recently.
Original playing strip
was Grammar Colours - yellow
shirt with blue collar, dark
blue shorts with yellow side
stripes, and yellow socks
with blue bands at the top.
WINDSOR
LADIES HOCKEY CLUB
began its life in 1935 when
it was known as Wesley Ladies
Hockey Club because at that
time all the players were
members of the same Church
- Wesley Presbyterian. So
they played hockey together
on Saturday and went to church
together on Sunday. As time
went by other players (who
weren't church members) joined
the Club. Eventually there
were not many church-goers
left, so the name was changed
to Windsor Ladies Hockey Club.
Why the name Windsor was chosen
is unknown (perhaps because
it started with a W). The
Club continued and became
one of the strongest and most
well known Clubs in Auckland.
Back then the ladies hockey
was played at Melville Park,
Epsom on a Saturday afternoon.
Original playing strip
was white shirt with bottle
green collar, bottle green
skirt, white socks with bottle
green stripes at the top.
AMALGAMATION.
In 1981 the two Clubs began
an "association".
They supported each others
teams during competitions,
and organised mutual social
functions together and sometimes
travelled away to Tournaments
together.
After a two year trial period
the two clubs merged formally
and took the name GRAMMAR
WINDSOR HOCKEY CLUB. At that
time the Club rooms were in
an old squash court (now demolished)
at Hobson Park (now part of
Dilworth School). The Treasurer
of the first joint committee
was Anne Harkness who is still
playing and on the committee
today.
UNIFORMS
today:- After two
years of each playing in their
original strip it was decided
a combined uniform should
be adopted. After many meetings
the new strip was a modern
abstract design of navy, teal
and white with a teal collar,
teal shorts and white socks.
This was the first time that
the women's teams played in
shorts, but they were not
that popular and skirts were
reintroduced. Also because
the strip was deemed too "similar?"
to other clubs uniform we
had to wear an alternative
strip when laying these clubs.
After a few years of this
hassle we decided to adopt
a strip that no other club
had hence the orange shirts
and blue shorts/ skirts were
adopted.
-
Anne Harkness Feb 2006
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