About us.

Founded in 1989 and based in East London, Wapping Hockey Club is one of the UK’s largest field hockey clubs, and provides affordable membership fees in the heart of central London.

We train and play throughout the year at our two purpose built hockey facilities - England Hockey’s National Stadium, Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre in the Olympic Park and the John Orwell Sports Centre in Wapping .

With regular socials, weekly fitness, training and matches, our friendly club is a great place for players of all ages and abilities.

Club structure

The club has 9 men’s and 9 women’s teams, 2 mixed teams and 2 masters’ teams, and, as part of our mission to broaden access to hockey in East London, the club is extremely proud of its youth hockey section, 'Wapping Kidds' which will offer free junior training sessions for the entire 25/26 season.

We also provide development opportunities for budding umpires and coaches.

leagues

Our teams play in the National League and London League, with our women’s 1st XI in Conference East and men’s 1st XI in the London Premier Division

Both men's and ladies teams play in friendly summer leagues and we also run a mixed corporate league over the summer.

We also have 2 mixed teams which mainly play friendly games against local clubs. Details can be found here.

If you don’t quite feel up to a league yet, we run Back to Hockey sessions throughout the year at our John Orwell pitch in Wapping.

Pitches

We have two home grounds:

  • Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre (LV) in the Olympic Park (Stratford) and the

  • John Orwell Sports Centre (JO) in Wapping.

The men's and women’s 1st-4th XIs train and play only at LV. 5th-9th XIs 7s train at JO but play at both locations.

All teams get to play on the Olympic stadium pitch at least once a year with the higher teams playing there more frequently.

Training

NEEDS UPDATING
Women

  • @LV - L1 - MON & WED - 20:30-22:00

  • @LV - L2 - WED - 20:30-22:00

  • @LV -L3 - MON - 20:30-22:00

  • @LV - L4 - TUES - 20:30 -22:00

  • @JO - L5 - WED - 20:30-22:00

  • @JO - L6/L7 - MON- 20:30-22:00

Back to Hockey (mixed)

  • @JO - TUES - 20:30-22:00

THIS NEEDS UPDATING

Men

  • @LV - M1 - TUE - 20:30-22:00 & THUR - 19:45-21:30

  • @LV - M2/M3 - WED- 20:30-22:00

  • @JO - M4/M5/M6/M7 - WED - 20:30-22:00

  • @JO - M8/M9/M10 - MON - 20:30-22:00


Goalkeepers (mixed)

  • MON - 20:30-22:00 - Alternate venues

Membership

In order to make playing at Wapping as accessible as possible, we strive to keep costs at a minimum by:

  • Supplying free team shirts for all players

  • Fundraising throughout the year, including sourcing grants and sponsorship and running our corporate CAWHL summer league and other events

  • Providing a concession rate for those with low income

Membership fees for the upcoming season can be found here.

Matches

Matches take place on a Saturday for normal league hockey and mixed games are usually on a Sunday.

Each week you will pay match fees which cover, the pitch hire, teas & umpires. This ranges from £10-£14 depending on if your team also pay for a coach to attend your matches.

Teas are provided by the home team and your captain will ask you to confirm if you will be attending teas during that game week.

Travel - Game day travel varies across the club and each team organises their own travel and payment for that accordingly

Kit

We play in Maroon (home) and White (away) and every team supplies team shirts for their players (normally washed on a rota basis)

The only Wapping specific kit players need is some appropriately coloured socks and shorts/skort.

You will also need some hockey appropriate shoes, a gumshield, some shinpads and a stick (but we can lend you one to start with if you don’t have one)

Should you wish, you can buy Wapping branded clothing and equipment here.

Umpires

We encourage everyone to contribute back to the club and umpiring is one of the best ways to do it.

As a club we’re hugely grateful to our umpires. Week in, week out, they make themselves available, often travelling across London or rushing after playing games themselves, to ensure that we can play our games safely. These heroes need one thing from us all, and that is respect. There is no such thing as a 100% perfect game and we will disagree with decisions taken, but how we deal with this reflects on us as individuals and us as a club. If you need any guidance, please have a look at the England Hockey Code of Ethics

If you want to be one of these heroes and have some time to give to receive the praise and adoration of your fellow hockey players, please contact our incredible Umpire Development Officers.

P.S we also pay our umpires £15 - £40 per match (level dependent)!

Squad selection

As a large London based club, we tend to see a lot of movement from year to year between squads.

At the beginning of each season we aim to get squads settled as quickly as possible with a good idea of who will be in which team by the first game of the season.

Every year we have late joiners and movement but we aim to settle as quickly as possible and then review the situation at Christmas.

Once the squads are agreed, the only squad movement comes if players are injured or new players join, however there will still be movement up and down teams depending on availability. More on this below.

weekly selection

At the beginning of the season we ask you to complete your availability on a spreadsheet and any updates must be made before by the Sunday before a game. Availability is for the whole day, not just your team’s game, and if you can only make a portion of the day this should be noted.

The Club Captains then look at the numbers across the teams and discuss whether any movement is necessary, before suggesting a number of players to move up or down if so.

Socials

We’re a very social bunch - but you don’t have to be. Join in with as much or as little social activity as you like. If you’d like a refreshment or want to watch some hockey, it’s near on impossible to not find someone to socialise with after your game, but the significant socials in the year are:

  • Club Day

  • Start of season social

  • Halloween

  • Xmas social

  • End of season social

  • Corporate league social

Key contacts