One of New Zealand's oldest hockey clubs celebrated its centenary in Mosgiel last weekend.
About 150 people attended the Taieri Hockey Club's 100th celebrations, which began on Friday night with a get-together at the club's Brooklands Pavilion, in Mosgiel.
On Saturday afternoon, the club had access to the McMillan Turf in Dunedin, and allowed former players to reacquaint themselves with a hockey stick and pit their skills against some of the club's present players.
A dinner marking the 100th birthday followed at the Northeast Valley Bowling Club on Saturday night.
Club vice president Rick Meder said rather than have a guest speaker at the dinner, the club had an open-mic session so past and present members could share highlights from the club's history - some of them engaging, some of them embarrassing.
''We decided to do something a bit different this year. There were some red faces, I'm sure.''
Mr Meder said nine of the club's 14 life members were present at the celebrations, including former New Zealand women's captain Jenny McDonald, former New Zealand hockey coach June Gill, former New Zealand men's hockey player Jim Brown, and regional hockey representatives Don Benington and Stephen Will.
''We only have 14 life members, and it's pretty awesome to have so many at the celebrations.''
During the celebrations, three new life memberships were named: Richard Will, Susan Dunn and Kelvin Sim.
Mr Meder said the club was also fortunate to have Myrie (Paddy) Jenkins, one of the club's longest serving members; and former Otago and New Zealand wicket keeper, hockey player and umpire Barry Milburn from Australia, at the centenary.
The Taieri Hockey Club was established in 1915 with a women's club.
It was not until 1965 that a men's club was established.
Little is known about the start of the women's club.
The men's club was established significantly later (after World War 2) because that was when there were enough men on the Taieri.
So it was a dual celebration at the weekend - 100 years for the women and 50 years for the men, Mr Meder said.
Before the advent of artificial turf, games used to be played at Brooklands, in Mosgiel, and the club rooms were shared by the hockey club and the cricket club.
Today, the Taieri Hockey Club has two women's teams, three men's teams and juniors.
