Pitch Hire

There are two floodlit, artificial grass hockey pitches at our Banbury Road North ground, and both are owned and managed by the Club through its management company, Oxford Hawks Limited.

‘Near Pitch’, which has the better spectator provision, was originally built in 1990 and extensively refurbished and improved in 2011.  ‘Top Pitch’ was built brand new in 2011.

Both pitches are built to FIH specifications, each with a fully engineered base and an in-situ rubber shock pad.  The Lano Revolution turf is identical on both pitches, manufactured from dense, monofilament polyethylene with a pile height of 18mm.  The turf is ‘sand-dressed’.  This means that it is weighted with a light dressing of sand that sits in the base of the pile.  Although the sand is not evident, the turf is not ‘water based’ and it does not require to be watered to be played on.  However, the club has installed a watering system as an optional extra to improve the playing characteristics of the turf on a discretionary basis. The floodlights on ‘Near Pitch’ were upgraded in August 2019 so that both pitches benefit from floodlighting levels of 500 lux.

Although the Club uses the pitches on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings for training, all day on Saturdays for club matches and on Sunday mornings for its junior section, the pitches are available for hire to other third party users at all other times.

Demand is always particularly strong for hire on midweek evenings through the winter season.  Soccer is played regularly on the pitches in addition to hockey.  The pitches have also been used for training by Lacrosse, American Football and Frisbee clubs.

Either a Full Pitch or a Half Pitch can be hired - half a pitch being a popular facility for 6-a-side soccer.

Hire charges are based on hourly rates of;