The Old Loughtonians Hockey Club

The founding Headmaster William Vincent introduced hockey to the School shortly after it’s foundation in 1889 and this action gave rise to the formation of Loughton Hockey Club.

It had many grounds in it’s time at High Beach, Fairlop, Chingford, Roding Lane and during the two World Wars, was for obvious reasons ‘put on the back burner’, however after each war the members managed to reform the Club but members had now spread far & wide.

The Club was growing and a decision had to be taken that if the Club was to survive and continue to grow it would be have to amend the rules to accept other players and therefore make the Club ‘open’ to other Members at the same time having close ties with Loughton School & the Old Loughtonians Association. Another major development during this time was the formation of a Ladies Section.

In 1977 what was up until them little more than a dream, there became available 10 acres of land in Luxbrough Lane Chigwell, which had been used during the construction of the M11 motorway.

Money was raised, loaned & borrowed to fund the scheme and in 1981 the existing Clubhouse was officially opened, the main Driving Force had been the Club’s Captain Derek Higgins (1941), the Club’s main sponsor is still the Higgins Group PLC and the Club President is Derek’s eldest Son Richard Higgins (1967)

The Club was the first in the country to have synthetic pitches which were installed in 1986 just prior to the Hockey World Cup, when some international teams used as a practice ground. The pitches also had a major refurbishment in 2011 when they were all relaid for the 2012 London Olympics and the entire site was put into ‘lock down’ and used as a practice ground for the Olympics, with it’s close proximity to east London.

For new and further information, you can visit the Hockey Club website by clicking on www.oldloughtonians.co.uk