MAKING HISTORY

As the German Polo Association celebrates its 50th anniversary, we explore 125 years of polo in Germany

It was the mid-1890s when a group of Hanseatic gentlemen in Hamburg heard about a relatively new sport in England, brought to the UK from India by colonial of cers in 1869. Elegant and fast-paced, it’s a team sport on horseback. “Polo” is what the English call the game, and in 1871 they organised the UK’s rst polo tournament.

In Hamburg, there was great enthusiasm for the new sport. Thus on 3 January 1898, Heinrich Hasperg Jr, Eduard Eggers and

Baron von Heintze-Weissenrode founded the Hamburg Polo Club – the rst polo club in continental Europe, located on the grounds of today’s Derby Park. Their rst public polo tournament was held on March 14, 1899.

In the summer of 1902 – on the site where the newly built clubhouse in the polo colours of red, white and green has just been inaugurated – guests from abroad came to Hamburg Polo Club for the rst time. Teams from Budapest and St Petersburg, an

“Anglo-American team” and a team from Hurlingham in England travelled to the Elbe. In the old guestbook of the HPC you can still nd match results and thank-you notes from players and visitors from England.

At the turn of the century, the enthusiasm for polo spread to other German cities and Heinrich Hasperg Jr began his second career as a promoter, founder and advisor to several polo clubs in Europe. In Germany, he supported the foundation of polo clubs in

Frankfurt (1902), Hanover (1903), Bremen (1904), as well as Munich and Berlin (1906). In 1927, the Polo Club in Cologne was founded.

During World War I and for many years after, polo was not played in Germany, but the beginning of the 1930s marked a new dawn for the sport. The major German clubs enjoyed remarkably large numbers and maintained a lively playing schedule, even travelling to tournaments in Vienna, Antwerp, Budapest, Vittel, Paris and St Petersburg.

But the economic decline in Germany and the rise to power of the National Socialists completely stopped polo. A nal highlight for German polo before WWII was the participation of the German national polo team in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The imposing 112,000sqm Maifeld – the largest polo stadium in the world at the time – was built especially for the Games, and situated in front of the Olympic Stadium with stands for 60,000 spectators.

More spectators cheered the Olympic polo games here in the summer of 1936 than any other sport. The interest in polo exceeded all expectations and proved the most popular sport of these Olympic Games – the rst-ever Olympics to be televised.

The 1936 Olympic nal between threetime Olympic polo champions Great Britain

More Spectators Cheered The Olympic Polo Games Here In 1936 Than Any Other Sport

(1900, 1908 and 1920) and defending champions Argentina took place on Sunday 7 August 1936 and ended with an 11-0 victory for the Argentinians.

After the end of World War II in 1945, more than 10 years passed before polo slowly regained a foothold in Germany. The British Allies stationed in Germany played a very important role in its development, providing signi cant support for the sport.

The Rhine Army Polo Association (RAPA) was founded in 1950 by British of cers who organised polo tournaments at British Army bases in Lower Saxony and in Berlin. The members of RAPA not only revived the sport as players, but contributed a lot to the training of the players and the organisation of tournaments at German clubs, too.

After the war, polo also became a platform for rebuilding shattered GermanBritish relations. Contemporary witnesses report polo (among other sports) helped to mend the broken relationship between the two nations. Both at polo matches and social events, the numerous balls and dinner parties enabled the British and the Germans to become closer again on a human level.

In addition to Miles Reincke on the German side, English major Hugh Dawnay, who later wrote polo classic Playmaker, went down in the sport’s post-war history as an outstanding player and much-praised coach.

Until the end of the 1990s, the British and the Berlin players competed on the Maifeld every year and regularly participated in the German Low-Goal Championships. RAPA is now the British Forces Germany Polo Club.

From 1960, polo tournaments gradually attracted international participation. Miles Reincke’s commitment to the sport of polo remained tireless. He pursued the ambitious, though unsuccessful, goal of establishing polo as an Olympic discipline at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, lobbying with the National Olympic Committee (NOK).

In 1989, Germany hosted the FIP World Championship “Mondialito” for the rst time