Stevenage Hockey Club

For many years we have been enjoying hockey and friendship with SV Gau Algesheim, a club from a small town near Ingleheim, the twin town of Stevenage, on the Rhine.

Easter 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the first visit by hockey team from Gau Algesheim to Stevenage and we will once again be hosts to players and friends from Germany. We hope to make that visit special and to involve as many as possible of our members in the entertainment as well as the hockey.

A party of 25 visited GA and enjoyed the usual exceptional entertainment, including a visit to Mainz and a tractor tour of the vineyards. The weather was excellent throughout - what we call "English weather".

We played for the first time at GA's super new astro turf facility but unfortunately could not match this with the quality of our performance. The home sides were younger, fitter outfits than we could muster.

32 German visitors stayed at the Ibis Hotel and enjoyed fine Easter weather, a day out in Cambridge and the hospitality of the Mayor of Stevenage amongst others.

For the first time the traditional "Tourists This Time vs Tourists Last Time" game was won by a German side - rather miffed, we suggest they have not yet understood the concept of "mixed hockey" - but the tournament played on grass was won by an English side.

The largest party ever, 38 counting 6 week old Katherine Swarbrick, included players ranging in age from 10 to 75 and 9 female players.

We won the traditional "Tourists This Time vs Tourists Last Time" match probably by sheer weight of numbers but did not fare so well in the tournament in Bad Kreuznach, where we were billed as England.

We were good at the schnapps tasting.

We took our 32 Gau-Algesheim guests lodged at The Cromwell (as we still call it) to Knebworth Park and to London, for a tour of the South Bank and on the London Eye.

On the pitch we showed them that they needed to refresh a somewhat ageing squad after a super tournament on grass in brilliant "English Weather".

We introduced them to Kicking Back (as they were not known in those days).

Our party was 35 based at the hotel Am Heljerhaisje and for the only time in the history of GA visits the tourists fielded two teams - the oldies in dark blue and the newbies in red, a mixed side for the first time. History does not record scores but we must have done well, or at least had good excuses with the split squad and the awful gravel pitch they used then.

We hiked through the vineyards and cruised on the Rhine.