Warwick Polo enter the record books

For most people, Wednesday 16th February may have just signalled the midpoint of Reading Week. However, for 35 distinguished members of the University of Warwick Polo Club, it signalled the start of the National University Winter Championships. Eight Warwick teams were ready to hook, hit and ride to victory at the largest indoor polo competition in the world, which saw 123 teams from over 30 universities compete in various divisions.

The first team to kick off Warwick’s quest for glory was the Beginner 3 team of Gen Gordon, Emily Serraillier, Lee Wright and Ulrich Graf. Their games were exciting and tense, especially in a thrilling penalty shootout in their third game, which saw Serraillier keep her nerve and confidently score the last penalty to send the Warwick crowd into raptures. Beginner 1 (Bertie Vidgen, Ruthie Grundy and Mette Asmild) followed in entertaining the crowd in a blistering Nationals campaign, where their fluid teamwork helped them finish as the 3rd best beginner team in the UK. Keeping up the impressive set Warwick displays, Louisa Lim, Adeline Jen and James McIntyre of Beginner 2 provided a mixture of discipline and flair to well and truly set the Beginner 1a Division alight and finish a deserved 2nd place in their division. Beginner 4 (Chloe Nott, Lily Stannard, Karina Vicario, Becca Ashton and Gee James) also performed superbly well against some tough teams in the Beginner 2 Division, with their matches leaving all spectators thoroughly impressed at the fact that they had only started to play polo four months ago!

The Warwick Beginners set incredibly high standards for the Novices to maintain, something that was done with aplomb by Novice 4. Captained majestically by Fiona Brown and backed up superbly by Caitlin McNamara, Ruth Peters and Alice Raicher, this awesome foursome showed panache and power to prove themselves a demanding opponent for anyone. Novice 3 (Chris Day, Rosie Thater and Phoebe Robertson) showed fearlessness and ferocity in all 4 of their matches (which included an 8-0 thrashing of Royal Holloway), and their only loss came against to the overall winners of the division. Carrying on in this inspirational vein, Novice 2 (Michael Burr, Dan Bradford and Lizzie Jay) was undoubtedly the most impressive team in the Novice 1a Division with their exhilarating end-to-end play, where they remaining undefeated throughout the whole weekend. Last, but by no means least, Heather Lacy, Jill Oxenham and Alice John of Novice 1 were deservedly crowned champions and the best Novice team in the UK after a tense semi-final penalty shootout (where Oxenham held her nerve to tuck away the decisive penalty). The final against Exeter saw ‘Novice MVP’ Lacy and the graceful John give outstanding performances to make Warwick the most successful university at Novice level in the history of the Winter Nationals.

After this thoroughly enjoyable and successful 4 days in the arena, Warwick Polo Club prepared themselves for a visit from Princess Anne at the local Riding for the Disabled centre where members of the Polo Club have been volunteering this year. The opportunity to meet the Princess Royal has come at the end of an incredible year for the Club, which has had a record number of members, and their performance at the Nationals has showed the rest of the UK what a strong force they are. After the impressive showing at Bristol, there seems no reason why Warwick cannot rule the UK once more at the Summer Nationals in just three months time.