Club
Information   The
LX Club was founded in 1995 as the result of suggestions made by continental teams. They were surprised that no teams in England were participating in over-60s hockey tournaments in Europe. An invitation was received from France to participate in a tournament for over-60s in Lille, and a team was raised which subsequently won the tournament.The inaugural meeting of the Club was held at the Etap Hotel in Lille on Saturday, 4th of February 1995 with thirteen players present. It was decided that the Club would be known as the LX Hockey Club, but generally shortened to the LX Club. In September 2003 the LX Club was sanctioned by England Hockey to select an official England Over 60 team to be called England Grand Masters. An England Great Grand Masters (Over 65) team was established the following year. (Click for details) The Ashes During the LX International Tournament at Canterbury a wooden hockey stick was burnt and the ashes deposited in a suitable vessel. Since then, the LX Club have regularly played the Australian Grand Masters for ‘The Ashes’. Up until March 2002 the LX Club retained possession of this most coveted trophy. Sadly the Australians won the encounter in Kuala Lumpur and took the Ashes back home with them for the first time. The 2004 World Grand Masters Tournament in Athens was the next meeting between the two countries and in the head to head meetings England A and B both beat Australia A and Australia B to emphatically reclaim the Ashes. At the 2006 World Cup in Leverkusen England retained the Ashes and LX also retained the trophy presented by Australia and now played for between the two B teams. The European Trophy
The first European Trophy competition was held in Amsterdam in
2000 and was won by Germany who retained it the
following year at Portsmouth. Paris hosted the event in
2002 and this time England prised the trophy from the
Germans and then retained it themselves in 2003 on goal
difference in Hanover. The 2004 competition was played
in Edinburgh: once again goal difference decided the
winners and Germany regained the Trophy. In Rotterdam in
2005 the European Trophy was at last decided by goals
scored in the final in which England Grand Masters
defeated the LX Club 3-0. In 2006 at Bra in Italy the
Trophy competition was restricted to national teams only
and England Grand Masters retained their title by
defeating Netherlands, Scotland, Italy and Germany,
while LX Club won the secondary competition for national
B teams and the Alliance.
In June 2007, the LX Club hosted the first official Grand Masters
European Cup at Canterbury. England Grand Masters were the first
Champions defeating Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Scotland. The LX
Club again won the Trophy competition. The World Cup  In May 1998 the
LX Club 'A' team
won the World Cup in Utrecht, beating the Dutch Over 60s in the final. The
next World Cup was held in Kuala Lumpur in March 2002, and the newly
created KPMG World Cup trophy was won by Germany. It was subsequently
agreed that the Over 60s World Cup should be contested every two years and
the 2004 tournament was held in Athens immediately after the Olympic
Games. An Over 65s international tournament was also staged
simultaneously. Australia won the Grand Masters (Over 60) event and
Germany beat England in a penalty shoot-out to win the Great Grand Masters
(Over 65) final. The 2006 World Cup was held in Leverkusen, Germany and
the hosts beat England 2-0 in the final to take the Grand Masters World
Cup. In the Great Grand Masters World Cup England became World Champions
for the first time, finishing well ahead of Germany, Netherlands and
Australia in a league competition, and England LX won the Tournament
Trophy, a newly-instituted competition for international B teams plus
the Alliance, the invitation team largely made up of players from
countries without an international team at Over 60 or Over 65 level. The
2008 World Cup will be held in Hong Kong from 12th to 21st September.
The Over-60s World Cup Other Events LX Club regularly travels to the continent to take part in tournaments in Holland, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy, spreading the joys of Over-60s hockey, and picking up new members on the way. Currently membership well exceeds 100, with new members being accepted at each Club committee meeting. We hold three regular Club Days/Weekends each year to bring all players together – and their wives/partners. These are: * Cannock weekend in the Summer, which has now become a divisional tournament organized by England Hockey * Peterborough weekend in September which includes the club AGM * Abingdon in December which includes the Xmas Lunch These occasions are not only social get-togethers for all LX Club Members but also an opportunity for the Selection Committee to assess existing and potential members for future representative matches The 2008 AGM (click for
Minutes of
AGM) was held on on Sunday 3rd August at the Great Northern Hotel, Peterborough, the club’s
spiritual headquarters A full list of the senior officers of the club is available on the Contact page of this website. Click to view the Club's constitution. |
  One of the strengths of the
LX Club lies in its focus as much on the
social side of club events as on the hockey played, and the positive
welcome and inclusion of members' wives and partners at all times.
Foreign tours usually include a ladies' program and visits have been organised to many fascinating places whilst the men have been battling hard on the pitch. The Peterborough AGM weekend in September includes an overnight stay at the Great Northern Hotel (very close to the Peterborough shopping centre), with hockey on both Saturday and Sunday and a club dinner on the Saturday night. In December there is a Club Day at Abingdon, with matches in the morning followed by a Xmas Lunch and time to chat and socialise at the Abingdon Lodge Hotel. GOLF. There is also an LX Golfers section, which met in June 2002 for the first LX Golf Day at Mentmore Golf Club. This Golf Day is now an annual event and the LX golfers also meet for a round near Peterborough on the Friday before the AGM with dinner afterwards. Golf has also been organised as a precursor to the Jersey weekend and before the game at Hereford. A golf day, before the Leeds weekend, is planned for 2008 SKIING. An innovation for 2005 was the start of a Ski section where a number of members and their wives went to Obergurgl in March 2005. In 2006 the party went to Zermatt but many of the club's skiers went on the South American tour in March 2007 so no ski tour was organised.
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