Warwick Polo’s Novice 2 become national champions

The Warwick Polo club gave an outstanding performance at this year’s SUPA Summer Nationals, held at local club, Offchurch Bury. Despite horrendous conditions which saw play suspended on the second day all six Warwick teams performed impressively, with Novice 2 winning their division and becoming national champions.

The team, consisting of ex club Vice-President Phoebe Robertson, finalist Caitlin Macnamara and polo fresher Alex Boardman, went unbeaten during the tournament and showed their able defensive skills by managing to go all four matches without conceding a goal. As graduates this year it was a fantastic ending to Phoebe and Caitlin’s Warwick Polo careers: both have been dedicated members since their first year and have competed at numerous national championships. They were rightly awarded club colours this weekend, and President and Vice-President Will Cavazzini and Katie Prideaux voted Phoebe ‘most valued novice’ at our recent awards night.

Our second Novice team also competed at a very high standard and only missed out on winning the majority of their matches due to bad luck in high-pressure ‘run downs’: racing from one end of the pitch to the other without putting the ball over the centre line or boards. Captained by our ex-President, Ben Goldsmith, Novice 1 put in a solid performance and proved themselves to be three of the club’s strongest members.

Beginner teams 1-4 all showed themselves to have improved immeasurably over the course of their first year as polo players. Sarah Pass received the award for ‘most improved beginner’ and several players made their nationals debut, playing fantastically.

2011-2012 has been an incredible year for the club, and we’d like to express our thanks to our coaches Tessa and Grant Collett for all their hard work in leading us to a national title and providing us with a lot of fun along the way. The club wouldn’t function without the commitment of our drivers giving lifts to and from the yard and our hugely dedicated exec members (past and present) who spend so much time thinking about polo that their degrees may well have suffered: We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in the club this year… you make Warwick Polo the best club on campus.