History of Oxford Polo
The Oxford University Polo Club has been in existence for over 125 years. In 1874, three years after the introduction of the game of polo to England, the Polo Club was founded by undergraduates from Christ Church and Brasenose Colleges, led by Mr Walter Long (later Viscount Long of Wraxall and First Lord of the Admiralty). The first match was held on the 1st of July 1877, and was contested by its two founder Colleges amid considerable pomp and ceremony. The great success of that day encouraged players to establish a varsity match with the Cambridge University Polo Club.
The Varsity Match is the oldest continuing polo fixture in the Western World and was first played at the Bullingdon Cricket Ground in Oxford on the 27th of November 1878. After a convincing 5-0 victory for the home side, the match became an annual fixture and was held thereafter at the Hurlingham Club and other venues from 1879 until 1939, apart from 1894 and 1900 and during the First World War when no games were played. After the Second World War the fixture was renewed in 1951. For several years the match was contested at the Guards Polo Club during Royal Ascot Week until, from 1959 onwards, except 1960, 1961, and 1963 when no matches took place, the venue for the match was decided annually, with the choice alternating with each university. In 1994, the Varsity Match returned to the Guards Polo Club where it was won by the Light Blues of Cambridge. A milestone was reached in the 1994 match, when the captains of both teams were women. This was the first time ever that the captains of both Oxford and Cambridge mixed sports teams were female. The series now stands at 53 matches to 49 in Cambridge's favour.
From the start of the club, Oxford players have been selected for national teams. William Kavanagh who played in the first Varsity Match in 1878 went on to become one of the first high-handicapped players and played for England several times against the USA. After helping his side win the 1882 Varsity Match, Tommy Hitchcock Sr. soon became one of America's leading players. He captained his national team within three years of leaving and was among the first the Oxford team played, 10-goal players. Near the turn of the century host to the three Nickalls brothers, two of whom went on to represent England.
Their contribution at university level saw the Dark Blues romp to a 15-0 victory in 1898. Five years later, an American arrived at Oxford who was to become more famous than any of his predecessors - Devereux Milburn. Not content with gaining a rowing blue, Milburn guided the polo team to victory in successive Varsity Matches, winning by a margin of 14 goals on both occasions. He soon graduated to international level, playing number four for his country in every match between 1909 and 1927. Universally described as the "greatest back there's ever been", he was also a founding member of the mighty "Big Four", the greatest side to play during that era. Since the Second World War, Oxford polo has been played on a greatly reduced scale and has not been able to attain levels reached hitherto. In 1965, Claire Lucas became the first woman player to compete in a Varsity Polo Match. The following year she became captain of the team that included her future husband, Simon Tomlinson. During the late Sixties and early Seventies, polo at Oxford enjoyed a purple patch, winning the annual match eight times in a row. Many of the players from this period are now well-known figures in the at played off a two-goal handicap polo world. Brigadier Reddy W while at university and subsequently became the highest rated Old Blue after the war when he peaked at five-goals. Claire Tomlinson who was rated at nil-goals at university also later reached five-goals to become the highest rated woman player in the world. Ironically, the winning streak came to an end when Oxford was able to field its strongest side. In 1974, Shahid Ali and A.Goetz were both on three goals, which is the highest handicap reached by post-war players while still at university. Two one-goalers made up the rest of the team. Cambridge, on the other hand, could only form a team with total handicap of minus one - but still managed to win the match! Oxford was victorious in last year's Varsity Match after a thrillingly close game, with an even score for much of the match before it settled in favour of Oxford at the end. The Oxford team looks forward to facing down their Cambridge opponents once again, and defending their Varsity Match title.
History of Cambridge Polo
The Cambridge University Polo Club was founded by the Hon. John Fitzwilliam in 1873, making it one of the oldest surviving polo clubs In Europe. In 1879 the University players felt strong enough to enter a team in Hurlingham's Champion Open Cup, which was the premier competition of the time and is equivalent to the modern day Gold Cup . Although they were quickly defeated, the experience served them well and they returned to Hurlingham later that year to defeat Oxford in the first Varsity match.
From that date until the outbreak of the Second World War, the Varsity match was contested annually at the Hurlingham Polo Club and played host to many great players from both universities. In recent years, HRH The Prince of Wales and Antony Embiricos, whose Tramontana team has won the Gold Cup a record number of times, have been the most distinguished polo players to wear the light blue jersey. The President of the Cambridge University Polo Club is HRH The Prince of Wales, who is unfortunately unable to play for the Old Blues this year, although he has helped them to success in the past...
History of the Eton Harrow Polo Match
When history records the events of the last year of the 1980s, what will be written? In the UK those of a certain age were enjoying the second Summer of Love, we all shared in Eastern Europe's jubilation as the Berlin Wall fell, and apparently we made Batman the top grossing movie of the year. In its small way, a group of 8 boys at Eton and Harrow were also making history, and the 2007 Eton Harrow match marks the coming of age for this varsity fixture between the two august institutions.
Marking its eighteenth year it stands as a relative newcomer in the history of sporting rivalry between the two schools, but in that time it has consistently provided high drama and excitement for those lucky enough to be part of the tradition. It's been rained off once (only to be rescheduled for the following day as a warm-up for Queen's Cup spectators), it's been re-located to Gloucestershire once (when polo was unavailable at Guards) and it's been contested by the scions of some of the world's best known polo families. And, by extension, the Old Boys' match has produced some epic settling of scores over the years - no one ever forgets being the runner-up on a top ground at Smith's Lawn!
Of course Etonian and Harrovian families have been involved in polo for considerably longer than the two schools have been playing their annual fixture. Indeed, it is widely accepted that Winston Churchill - himself a pupil at Harrow in the 1800s - once said: "a polo handicap is your passport to the world", and this maxim has been widely tested by polo playing gap year students from Eton and Harrow ever since. But it wasn't until 1989 that a group of boys from both schools managed to formalise an Eton Harrow fixture, which Guards Polo Club was kind enough to accommodate (and have kindly done so ever since). After the parents (hereafter known as the Patrons) enjoyed a fine lunch, their sons took to the field of play, with Harrow taking the honours in that first year. Thereafter there was a long run of Eton victories, but in recent years the tide has begun to turn in favour of Harrow once again. Whether this can be sustained without the secret weapon that was Richard La Poer, playing off a 3 goal handicap for Harrow last year, remains to be seen.
The Eton Harrow match is also widely regarded as the catalyst that helped to start the whole Schools' Polo movement in this country - other schools thinking that if Eton and Harrow had started playing, then they might as well do so too. The net result of which can be seen from the 23 separate entries to the National Schools' Polo Tournament in 2006, marking the truly remarkable growth of interest and involvement in the sport at a youth level. Meanwhile, a number of old boys from both Eton and Harrow have gone on to play in top level polo, representing regiments, companies and country � thereby underpinning the legacy set up by those pioneers in that hot summer of 1989.
The Varied World of Polo
The first ever game of polo took place in 600BC between the Turkomans and the Persians. However, it took until the 1850's for British tea planters to discover the game in Manipur on the Burmese border with India. The first polo club in the world, Calcutta Polo Club, was founded in 1862, seven years before the first game was played in the UK. Initially polo was played by the cavalry sections of the army, until Monmouthshire, the first polo club in England, was founded.
Polo soon crossed the Atlantic and in 1875 the first official polo match took place in Argentina. From then on it has continued to spread around the world and today over 77 countries play this beautiful game. In addition to the equestrian version of polo, that we are all familiar with, there are some more modern takes on this traditional game. Elephant polo was first played in India around the turn of the 20th Century. It is played with a standard polo ball, since elephants like to burst inflated balls, and with a mallet in the region of six to nine metres in length. The elephants are driven by their trainers, called "mahouts", and the players are secured to the elephant with a rope across their thighs and rope stirrups. The pitch is three quarters of the length of a standard polo pitch because elephants are that bit slower than horses Bicycle polo is thought to have started when troops were short on horses and wanted to hone their polo skills, and as a result it has kept many of the standard polo rules. It is the cheapest version of polo to play as all you need is a bike, a helmet, a short polo mallet, a small football and a lot of puff. Although this version is strictly a non-contact sport, the potential for injury from getting the mallet head stuck in the spokes of one of your wheels is great.