History of Nelson Bay Hockey Club – Preamble:

Barry Pugh is credited as the person who initiated the first Hockey Team / Club in Nelson Bay, in the early 1980’s. A very committed (and social) group of men proceeded to compete in the Newcastle Hockey competition, with many notable successes (much to the annoyance of Newcastle!). This group wisely established some excellent management practices which laid a sound foundation upon which our Club has continued to develop and prosper. The Club has steadily and continuously grown since then to include additional Men’s teams, a Women’s team, Junior teams, local MIXED competitions, representative players at Regional and State levels. From the original 1 team, our Club has grown to field up to 24 teams in various formats. The original Club has since divided into 2 Clubs – to better meet the players’ needs:

  • Nelson Bay Hockey Club is concentrated on local mixed competition and skill development for players of all ages 5-60+.
  • Port Stephens Hornets Hockey Club currently has a number (4 or 5..) of Men’s teams playing exclusively in the Newcastle Competition.
  • Players progressing from Nelson Bay competition through to higher levels are encouraged to follow our strong links to Hornets (Men) and Novos (Women), and we also maintain strong links with a number of Newcastle Junior Clubs.

This history has been collated from early documents of the Club, including information to players leaflets, Committee meeting records, Presidents reports at the AGM, newspaper clippings and other documents. It has been compiled in 2017 and 2018 by Vince Northwood and checked by Lindsay Brown, both Life Members of the Club. This is a work in progress – we envisage the Complete history of the Club will be developed in four parts;

  1. Overall Summary of the Clubs Executive members, the Club person of the Year, the name of the Club, and the competitions that were entered for Juniors and Seniors at the time. (See NBHC Timeline below) **
  2. Past Presidents reports
  3. Significant documents in the history of the Club
  4. Significant photos of the Club.

Parts 2, 3 and 4 are still to be compiled at March 2018. And beyond…

**[Note: During the years from 2000 to 2010, the Club had two executive Committees – one running the overall Club and another running the Nelson Bay component. This was mainly due to the different means of providing insurance for the players.]

 

  1. NBHC Timeline (Excel download – includes photos)
  2. Past Presidents’ Reports

 

nbhc-timelinepdf Download