Match Preview

This week Kettering entertain mid table St Ives from Cambridgeshire. Not to be confused with their Cornwall namesake famed for its clear sky for art schools, Tate Gallery, pasty shops on every street and unbelievably expensive holiday properties this St Ives is just along the road. St Ives HC are famed for their pitch with no fence meaning balls may travel some kilometres before hitting some shrubs. They are also renowned for forcing their opposition to tape their socks into a hooped style prior to the start of the game.
St Ives is a similar size to Kettering and was one of the Clubs we looked at modelling ourselves on when seeing how we could drive our club forward. St Ives do a terrific job bearing in mind it is surrounded by other hockey playing places, probably playing second fiddle to Cambridge but now eating St Neots who seem to be imploding. We obviously succeeded with having a fence that went the whole way round our pitch and we now battle against St Ives at all levels especially our 3rd and 4th team who play a kind of World Series best of 17 against St Ives 4s and 5s every year.

A brief history of St Ives

Previously called Slepe, its name was changed to St Ives after the body, claimed to be that of a Persian bishop, Saint Ivo (not to be confused with Ivo of Kermartin), was found buried in the town in about 1001/2. St Ivo's Priory was built on the site where the body of Saint Ivo was discovered.

St Ives was listed as Slepe in the Hundred of Hurstingstone in Huntingdonshire in the Domesday Book. In 1086 there was one manor and 64 households, 29. 5 ploughlands, 60 acres (24 hectares) of meadows and 1,892 acres (766 hectares) of woodland.

For the past 1,000 years St Ives it has been home to some of the biggest markets in the country, and in the thirteenth century it was an important entrepôt, and remains an important market in East Anglia.

We hope St Ives will be Slepey when they visit fortress Bishop Stopford on Saturday.