Report provided by Mike Carter, Festival Historian and Archivist. All photos ©Al Macphee/MiraclePR
A very successful 72nd Torbay Easter Hockey Festival concluded on Easter Monday with the final game being abandoned at half time due to a tremendous rain storm , summing up the weather over the whole weekend .
The transition from the Redcliffe Hotel to The Palace proved to be virtually seamless, with the latter quickly adapting to the incoming Festival HQ and Oddfellows Club – even coping with the 100 or so sitting down to the Oddfellows Club Annual Dinner.
The Bill Stickells Cup for highest scoring team was won, for the third time in four Festivals, by the Buffaloes from Smethwick H.C., with 44 goals scored. Midwives from Surrey were a distant second with 27. Ironically, the abandoned game was between these two teams, with the Midwives causing the Buffaloes to lose their unbeaten record with a two goal to nothing win. In fact, every team lost at least one game, the first time this had happened since 2016.
The inaugural outing of the Tony Forward Fair Play Shield saw it jointly awarded to the Bluebottles (Bristol) and the Torreadors from the local Torbay Hockey Club.
A total of 9 teams, the same as in 2023, contested the tournament, but seeds were sown over the weekend to increase this number, thus allowing the UK’s longest surviving Easter Festival to continue.
Clubnets kicked off our new TikTok channel on the opening day of the festival, and while it’s fair to say the video editing process didn’t quite go as planned (especially the sound), we hope you will get a taste of the fun of the festival.
Photo Gallery: All Photos ©Al Macphee/MiraclePR.com
