PTMay 2010 p40-45 Home & Abroad JM PJ MB
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Reports At home and abroad France
Beach boosts profile of re-established club Players from across Europe descended upon the quaint town of Le Touquet in northern France at the end of March to return polo to the area and celebrate the start of the French polo season ouquet Polo Club only re-opened in November of last year, after closing down during World War II. However, despite commitment from Le Touquet’s local council to reserve seven hectares for a new polo field, the club does not yet have a feasible ground to play on – so staff and members are creating publicity and drumming up support with imaginative new initiatives. The latest of these was a -2-goal beach polo event on 27-28 March, when the recently re-established Touquet Polo Club welcomed six teams, with local French players alongside Polish players from Polski Polo Klub in Warsaw and Flemish players from Brussels. Le Touquet beat Black-Pearl-Arcturus by half a goal, 3-21/2, continuing a run of wins from the club’s inaugural beach tournament last year, when organisers used the eye-catching event to promote the launch of the club. “We hope to have our first ground ready for competitive action by the 2012 season,” said Pierre Bergounioux, president of Touquet Polo Club. “It is
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reasonable to envisage two fields of international standard by the end of this decade. The national association [French Federation of Polo] wants Le Touquet next to St Tropez and Bagatelle as a major name in the national and international circuit because of our rich polo heritage.” In the meantime, members will continue to travel to other grounds in the region to play their polo, or will take part in events such as this one on the nearby beach, though no tournaments are currently planned during the main summer season so as not to interfere with its members who wish to play a full grass season elsewhere. Eventually, however, the club’s polo team hopes to build a venue that will attract British players for the short hop across the channel. Indeed, the trip is deemed short enough by organisers for the London 2012 Olympics, who have identified the area as somewhere they recommend to countries setting up a base for the duration of the event. It is in the north-east corner of France, near Belgium and just 30 miles from the UK coastline.
Lacey Green
New polo manager begins her tenure FOLLOWING UP ON Carlie Trotter’s Playing Around column in the last issue of Polo Times, our featured club of the month Lacey Green has since welcomed a new polo manager full time to take up the reins at the club for this season. Octavia Campbell-Davys is the former secretary and polo manager from Vaux Park, having learned her trade in polo as part of Cambridge University Polo Club, when she studied Social and Political Sciences there as an undergraduate. Her love of the game grew with several trips to Argentina and with periods spent grooming at Waimai Polo Club in New Zealand and at West Somerset Polo Club in the UK. Fortunately, she has her former boss from New Zealand, Richard Seavill, managing nearby at West Wycombe, and she has already been warmly received by the club’s board and members. “We are delighted to have found someone with Octavia’s experience,” said the club’s founder, Jairo Rojas. “She seems to have the right level of energy to manage a young club with so much to offer, but also so many things to learn.” The club also welcomes back the same group of pros they had on board last year, and have also brought in George McCorkell and Greg Keyte, as well as Kirtlington-based player and umpire, Martin Fewster.
40 May 2010 www.polotimes.co.uk
Octavia Campbell-Davys, left and above, arrives at Lacey Green with experience running the polo at Vaux Park. She has also played in New Zealand and Argentina
“We are delighted to have found someone with Octavia’s experience” – club founder Jairo Rojas