Neath Hockey Club is based just outside the town of Neath in South Wales and play at Neath Sports Centre.

The club runs two senior men's sides that play in the Davis Wood South Wales Hockey League.

Neath Hockey Club as we know it now, was initially formed sometime in the mid 1930’s.

However, at this time it was known as Port Talbot Hockey Club and played as a mixed XI against other local clubs.

The club played throughout the Second World War, mostly against sides from the armed forces as there were very few civilian clubs that can claim to have played throughout the war.

Port Talbot is well know for the steel making factory that is based on the edge of town and after the war the Port Talbot Hockey Club merged it’s resources with the steel plant and became known as The Steel Company of Wales Port Talbot Hockey Club and a few years later changed once again into the British Steel Port Talbot Hockey Club.

The first records of the club were for the 1945/46 season, in which the late Pat Higgins was the club Chairman, Guy Russell the team Captain and Harold Salisbury, the farther of the current Chairman Derek, was the Vice-Captain.

In the mid 1980’s league hockey came to South Wales and during the following years the club gained many honours, all the time going from strength to strength.

However, the club’s greatest honour was during the 1990/91 season when British Steel represented Wales in “B” Division of the European Cup Winners Cup tournament which, that year, was held in Gibraltar.

At this tournament the club came up against teams from several different nationalities, the hosts from Gibraltar, Switzerland, Holland to name a few.

The squad that played in this prestigious tournament consisted of: Peter Courtney (Captain), Rob Cook (Goalkeeper), Nigel (SAS) Rowlands (Goalkeeper), Huw Mathias, Les Malinovszki, Mike Waters, Steve Tossell, Ravinder Sanghera, Graham McLean, Neil Bromham, Dave Bennett, Nigel Stokes, Mark Long, Geoff Davies, Mark Hamer, Mark Male, and Paul Banfield (Manager).

During the following seasons (1990/91) two other local clubs merged with the British Steel Port Talbot team. B.P. Llandarcy disbanded and most of their players came to join British Steel, greatly strengthening the 2nd XI, and this was closely followed by the inclusion of players from the Mond Nickle Hockey Club of Pontardawe which also disbanded during this period. In the following seasons third and forth XI’s were formed along with an indoor squad that was managed by a past Welsh International player, Mark Male.

With the advent of artificial surfaced pitches, the club was forced to move with the times in an effort to keep up the high standards of hockey that they were used to and had to play their league matches at Morfa Stadium Swansea. This, for some time had been the home ground to other clubs like Swansea and Oystemouth and the teams quite often found that they had to play many of their games at odd times on a Saturday to get a booking.

It was therefore somewhat of a ‘Godsend’ when Neath Borough Council decided to build an artificial turf pitch and the club was quick to take advantage and moved to their current location Cwrt Herbert Sports Centre.

It was at this time that the club renamed itself for the final time and became Neath Hockey Club in 1995.

The club has stabilised at this location, a location with probably the best all-round facilities in South Wales, and weathered some difficult periods (the fourth team was dropped in 1995 and then the third team in 1998), even though the club is now reduced to two sides there is hope that the current influx of youth players (Neath have been able to run a Youth squad since the 1999/00 season) will enable the club to continue and possibly grow again.

During the past three seasons 1999/00/01 the club has combined with Pembroke Hockey Club to form a veterans XI, affectionately known as The Rusties, and this team has won the Welsh Veterans Cup during the 1999/2000, 2000/2001 seasons.

We do not have any ladies hockey teams but we do have a very close affiliation with Cwmtawe Ladies hockey team who run both senior and junior sides and a link to their website can be found on the links page of this website.

Club Colours

HOME: Black Shirt with White Trim, Black Shorts and Black socks

Many thanks to Derek Salisbury for researching the club history.

Neath Hockey Club

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