A picture of the team from around 1966.

 Back row: Jean Wills, Roberta Mingay, Angela Byles, Heather Hunn, Eileen Wicks, Margaret Snowling
Front row: Christine Muttitt, Linda Hembling, Vivian Cooper, Anne Thomset,
Christine Wyatt.

                                        Club History

In 1966 with the help of the Sports Development Council and money from The Ernie Draw Beccles Ladies Hockey Club was formed. It had no pitch or changing rooms so for the first year all matches were played away and training was held at Beccles Modern School (now the Beccles Middle School). The members of the club picked stone off the newly prepared soil before the grass was sown on the pitch at Beef Meadow. In 1967 Beccles Ladies played their first home game but the marking out of the pitch was done by the team’s left inner Margaret Snowling (Chaston). The changing facilities were the Riffle Hall situated near Beccles Towns Football pitch. In 1970 the Sports Pavilion at Common Lane was built and Beccles Ladies had some of the top facilities of its time.

In the 1970’s Beccles ran a 5 a-side Indoor League at the Sports Centre, Ringsfield Road, and won the competition once themselves.

One player who joined the club, a 12-year-old schoolgirl Sandra Ball (Roberts) who had great ability, went on to play a higher standard of hockey and eventually joined the England squad.

All matches in those days were friendly games mainly played in Suffolk. However with the start of league hockey and lack of opposition, Beccles Ladies found it increasingly difficult to get a game on the allocated league dates, so in 1990 they decided to join the Norfolk League

They entered the 5^th division and won promotion each consecutive year and ended up in division 1, (now the Premier Division). They spent a year in this division and were relegated to division 2 (now division 1) where they continued to play and in March 2004 won promotion back to the Premier Division. Unfortunately they were unable to accept promotion as the rules stated that all games must be played on an astro pitch and there was no astro pitch available to them at Beccles.

After spending several years in division 1 and with a change of the Norfolk League rules extending the rule of astro pitches to premier & division 1, Beccles, who had just won promotion again, were forced into relegation to division 2. After twice winning promotion they were trapped in this division because of lack of an astro pitch. On the third time of winning promotion and with an astro pitch being laid at Hobart High School, Loddon, Beccles decided that for the season 2007/8 they would take the well-deserved promotion and play in division 1 as this was the only way forward.

Beccles are eager to return to their ‘own town’ as soon as an astro turf pitch suitable for hockey is built bringing the towns sporting facilities back into the 21^st century.

Beccles Ladies won the Team Award presented by the Sports Development Council in 1989 and again in 1995. In that same year a member of the club, Christine Muttitt (Potter) won the Sports Personality of the Year. In the following year Beccles Ladies umpire Barry Mann was presented with the SDC Merit Award.

Beccles Ladies also won the Harleston Magpies Last X1 Tournament in 1994, 1995 and 2003.