Surbiton Hockey Club is a professional field hockey club based in Long Ditton, Surrey, England. The club is one of the oldest hockey clubs in the world, being established in 1874. The home ground is based in Long Ditton, at Sugden Road.^[1] The women's team have been champions of England on nine occasions and the men's team have been champions of England three times.^[2]

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Surbiton Hockey Club

Full name	Surbiton Hockey Club
Founded	1874; 150 years ago (1874)
Home ground	Sugden Road, Long Ditton
Chairman	Andy Powdrell
League	Men's England Hockey League Women's England Hockey League
Website	https://surbitonhc.com/
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The Men's 1st Team play in the Men's England Hockey League and the Ladies 1st Team play in the Women's England Hockey League. The club fields twelve men's sides, including one veterans and one super-vets team, as well as eight ladies sides and also youth sides.^[3][4]

The men's 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th teams play in divisions of the Higgins Group London Hockey League, while the 'Jokers' and 'Magnets' sides play in the veterans section of this league. The 4As play in the Surrey Area Division 2 of the South Hockey League. The 6th, 7th, 8th teams and the 'Sparticans' play in the Surrey Open Hockey League. The ladies' 2nd and 3rd teams play in the South Clubs' Women's Hockey League while the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th teams play in the Surrey Ladies Hockey League. The boys and girls teams (U-11 up to U-18) play in the Mercian Home Counties Colts Hockey League.

Surbiton's current home ground constitutes one water-based and one sand-based Edel Grass pitch. The old second (sand-based) pitch (referred to by some club members as "The Beach") was replaced by the second water-based pitch as part of the club's re-development over summer 2013. The preceding months had seen a total of £1 million raised, including grants from Sport England as well as SHC's own fundraising initiatives - under the banner "Bye Bye To The Beach".

Further club refurbishment over the summer also included an expanded kitchen facility and an increase in the number of changing rooms and toilets. Surbiton's original home ground was on Balaclava Road but moved to Sugden Road in 1908, to make way for the Seething Wells water works. The current pavilion building was first erected in 1986, with the first artificial pitch being installed in 1991 - the second pitch was added in 1995.

The club colours are white, green and magenta. This is embodied on the club shirt which is predominantly white with a single magenta strip across the chest and a single dark green strip directly underneath. The club's crest is on the two stripes in white on the left breast, while the kit sponsor is on the right. The current shirt sponsor (as of October 2013) is BT Sport. This shirt is worn with dark blue shorts/skorts and dark green socks with white trim, and thin white/magenta hoops. The current shorts sponsor (as of October 2013) is Weybridge based specialist gym (Locker 27), which the Men's 1st XI occasionally use for strength and conditioning training.

The Men's 1st XI's away strip consists of a black shirt worn with white shorts and magenta socks. The rest of the club continues to wear the more renowned dark green shirt of previous seasons. This shirt has magenta and white stripes in similar fashion to the home shirt (the white stripe replaces the green stripe). This is also worn with dark blue shorts/skorts but with all-white socks.

The club crest is a very simple design bearing the 'SHC' abbreviation of the club's name, with 'Surbiton 1874' underneath.

Surbiton was originally involved in many of the developments which mark out hockey as a different pitch game from any other – the striking circle, two umpires, and stopping the ball before a penalty corner shot, for example. The club was also instrumental in taking hockey to schools and universities during the latter part of the 19th century, whilst International and Divisional matches were also played on its original ground at Balaclava Road in Surbiton.

The club was a founder member of the Hockey Association in 1886 and is currently one of three Surrey-based clubs playing in the National League (the others being Guildford and Oxted). The block fixture system, whereby on the same day every team in the club played the equal level team in another club, provided the solid foundation on which hockey thrived right up to the starting of the leagues in the late 1960s. The 600-strong Colts' section now provides the opportunity for talented young players to progress to county, divisional and national age group representative sides, as well as to the top sides in the Club itself. Several players have made this progression and some are current first team members. One player, Brett Garrard, began his hockey career at Surbiton and went on to become Great Britain and England's most capped player of all time. He now coaches the Surbiton ladies 1st XI.

Surbiton has always been a well-travelled touring club, with their infamous Strollers starting the Easter touring tradition in 1928. The Keeper of the Banana and associated rituals continue into the 21st Century and such is the size of the club that this has given birth to other touring sides, the most notable including the Lastminute Crusaders and Pirates of Kazakhstan.