Crowdfunding Project Launched To Help Create Top Quality Hockey Pitch In Leicester

Leicester City Hockey Club (previously Leicester Hockey Club, established in 1894) and St Margaret’s Pastures are delighted to announce the launch of a brand-new crowdfunding project, which aims to deliver a top-class water-based playing pitch and, subsequently, elite hockey to the centre of Leicester.

Switch The Pitch aims to raise £30,000 which will be used to commence the first stage of the pitch reinstallation at St Margaret’s Pastures Sports Centre; primarily the stripping and disposing of the current sub-par playing surface, which will then enable the new water-based surface to be installed.

St Margaret’s Pastures is the new home of Leicester City Hockey Club, with five of the club’s current seven adult teams, in addition to all young players involved in the club’s academy, playing matches and training on a weekly basis at the multi-sport venue in the heart of Leicester.

At present, the club’s ladies’ first and second teams play fixtures at Leicester Grammar School, as the current playing surface at St Margaret’s Pastures doesn’t conform to standards at the highest levels of the game. Therefore, the installation of the new water-based playing surface, funded initially through the Switch The Pitch project, will enable elite women’s hockey to return to Leicester city centre.

However, the desire to bring a first-class playing surface to St Margaret’s Pastures goes far beyond Leicester City Hockey Club. The aim of the project is to enhance the venue as a multi-sport hub of the highest quality and provide the best facilities to the local community.

The installation of the new water-based pitch will not only enable members of the Leicester public to watch elite hockey – but it will also inspire more people to get active and play the sport.

Aside from Leicester City Hockey Club fixtures, the water-based pitch will be available for everybody within the community to use, meaning that young players watching their hockey heroes play will be able to play on the exact same pitch themselves.

Members of the Leicester public wishing to support the crowdfunding project are invited to ‘buy a square’ of the new playing surface with a £20 donation.

Please visit www.spacehive.com/switch-the-pitch to donate to the crowdfunding project.

Sarah Treanor, the Club’s Vice President for Development, said: “The impact on the local community that having this water-based pitch at St Margaret’s Pastures will have is potentially huge. Aside from helping St Margaret’s become a modern-day multi-sport facility, it will help one of the Leicester’s oldest sports clubs return to the city and enable a host of aspiring young hockey players the chance to be inspired. It will mean that Leicester City, Leicester Tigers, Leicester Riders and Leicester City Hockey Club are all in close proximity to each other in what has been described as the capital of sport in the UK. To be able to step out onto the same pitch that the senior teams play on is a wonderful prospect and something that I hope everybody within the local community gets behind.”

For more information on Switch The Pitch and to donate, please visit www.spacehive.com/switch-the-pitch

For any questions relating to Switch The Pitch, please contact project lead Emma Compson via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.