The History of Field Hockey
Hockey is the oldest known stick-and-ball game (apart from Irish hurling, which dates back to pre-historic times). Historical records show that games resembling modern field hockey were played in various ancient civilizations, although it is not possible to know exactly when and where the game began. There are 4,000 year old drawings in Egypt of the game being played. While modern hockey appeared in the mid-18th century in England, primarily in schools, it was not until the first half of the 19th century that hockey became firmly established, the first club being created in 1849 at Blackheath in south-east London.
In the early 1970s, artificial turf fields began to be used in competition. The introduction of synthetic pitches instead of grass ones has completely changed most aspects of hockey. The game, as well as the material used to play, has taken a definitive turn, gaining mainly in speed. In order to take into account the specificities of this surface, new tactics and new techniques have been developed, often followed by the establishment of new rules to take account of these techniques. The switch to synthetic surfaces essentially ended Indian and Pakistani domination of the sport, because artificial turf was far more expensive than grass; too expensive for the two countries to implement widely in comparison to the wealthier European countries.
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