Polo girls play the field
Polo
Result: 2nd place Beginner's Section Division One
London 2 Oxford Brookes 1
London 3 Leeds 2
London 1 Southampton 0
London 0 Reading 4
The ninth to twelvth of February saw the 2006 SUPA National Universities Arena Polo Championships, held at Longdole Club near Cirencester. By coincidence the University of London entered an entirely Imperial team, consisting of Ali Walker, Annabel Goldie-Morrison and Tori Page. The majority of play was kept to the arena, however the 4 days incorporated some interesting excursions into the Cotswold wilderness, namely the Rock Club in Cirencester (note: pikeys and polo players DO NOT mix well) and the Tunnel (full of undercover Sun journos and royalty).
The Nationals attract teams from all over the country, from Edinburgh to Exeter. The girls' first conquest was Oxford Brookes with an ace goal from Tori topped up by a penalty 1 (goal given for a serious foul) to take us into the lead. We conceded one goal to Brookes because they're not a real university and we felt sorry for them. This pity soon disappeared as the incessant whooping and yelling of their one female team member began to grate on the nerves, and their no. 1 actually grabbed Ali's stick with his hand to prevent her hitting the ball...that's just not polo...
Thursday also saw London remove Leeds from the tournament with a safe 3-2 score. Annabel scored the first goal seconds after the start of play, and a short while later saw London's second goal from Tori. After a hefty traffic jam in front of our goal Ali sent the ball home for a third time. Leeds slipped a couple in thanks to the umpire overlooking some serious misconduct on their part. This is probably due to Guy verbally abusing him several chukkas earlier and getting the first technical foul ever given in a beginner 's league, so now he hates all Londoners.
So through to the semi-finals and we came up against three incredibly grumpy girls from Southampton, Tori lamped a spanking goal home and some outstanding defence prevented Southampton from getting near their goal. They were such sore losers that when we shook hands after the match Tori was told that her goal had been `lucky'...oh well, lucky or not we still won and they lost.
The finals were not such a happy affair we lost 0-4 to Reading, but in our defence one of their players was also playing in a team in the league above. We were yet again disadvantaged by the selectively blind umpire, who overlooked Reading's heinous fouls and yet pulled Annabel up constantly for merely sandwiching her opposite number into the wall. Ali got in some awesome hooks at serious speeds (when you use your stick to hook your opponent's stick and hold them off the ball) and Tori stuck to her man like glue, preventing him from getting much of a look in on the game. Some interesting tactics from Reading, especially when No.3's horse grabbed Ali's stick with its teeth.
So all in all a successful time, coming 2nd out of nearly 30 teams, many thanks go to Phil Meadows our awesome coach and supplier of Pepper, Nevada and mini Seabrook, three superb horses who contributed considerably to our success.
Special mention to George `Eurotrash' Prassas who makes sure everything runs to plan, and who holds the strong belief that `new money is better than no money'. Also Boob who along with Phil hurled abuse at the umpire and advice to us, and who knows the true value of an egg, a Neurofen and a shower when preparing for a match, having drunk the Rock dry the night before. How can we not mention the Clockwise Oompa Loompa from UWE who hasn't quite grasped the point of polo and prefers to ride around the arena in circles, and also the Exeter groupies who single-handedly keep the peroxide and fake tan markets in business, and are possibly the result of a secret cloning experiment. So please Imperial, stay with ULU so we can continue our attack on the provinces and ensure that we ride to glory in the Summer Nationals...much polo love x.
