Talk

ay ay captain

Luke Tomlinson on his plans for the future and the state of the game in England

WORDS ED BARRETT

Above: Tomlinson sports his Apes Hill team shirt For a man who is friends with Princes William and Harry, and was one of the pro-hunt demonstrators who invaded the House of Commons, Luke Tomlinson manages to keep a surprisingly low profile in our celebrity-obsessed world. This is a tribute to both his natural modesty and his single-minded dedication to his polo career. Within the sport, however, Luke is a well-respected 7-goal professional and the current captain of the England team. Now his stock looks likely to rise further still in 2007 as captain of the first ever all-English professional side.

The story began last summer, when friend of the family Sir Charles ‘Cow’ Williams watched the Gold Cup final at Cowdray and was dismayed at the complete absence of English players. The construction magnate and former 4-goaler decided to do something about this, and the result is Apes Hill Club Barbados – an all-English team cosponsored by American developer Jerry Barton, and named after their Caribbean golf and polo development.

‘The task was to put together a wellmounted team, under-handicapped,’ Luke explains. ‘I was keen to play with my brother Mark [7-goal] because we play well together. Tom Morley is probably one of the best in the world off five goals, and Ed Hitchman is one of the stronger 3-goalers.’

Luke’s priorities are training in Argentina and looking for horses, but in the longer term he hopes the team will sell Apes Hill and put on a good show in the Queen’s Cup and Gold Cup. He aims to win, of course, but up against teams with top players and years of infrastructure and organisation, he says ‘a team that has got to a semi-final has had a good season.’

He regards Apes Hill as a landmark and hopes it will lead to more corporate sponsorship. To achieve this, he says that polo must reach a wider audience, and he believes this is now happening. He remains optimistic about English polo, and says there is a lot of talent coming through. As a leading light, he hopes to change the culture in which senior players have tended not to help younger players who might soon be competing against them. ‘I try to be free with advice and help,’ he explains, ‘and therefore improve the overall standard of polo.’

‘English polo is strong,’ he insists. ‘There aren’t any 10-goal players like in Argentina, but there are good players and the national side is probably third or fourth in the world. Gonzalo Tanoira, the Argentine polo president who died a couple of years ago, was very keen on a 28goal World Cup but the Argentinians seem less interested now. A world series would be great, and easy for the pubic to identify with. And individual Test matches can certainly be sponsored.’

Meanwhile, he has other goals. ‘I’d love to play the Argentine Open in a competitive team,’ he reflects. ‘And obviously I’d like to be a 10-goaler – but that’s tough!’

joining the colours

Martin Ephson is not only a passionate polo player, but has a ‘decorated’ history as an entrepreneur…

WORDS NIC CICUTTI

Polo, like any sport, thrives on the passion and commitment of its participants – a passion typified by Martin Ephson, who has embraced the game with much fervour over the past decade or so.

Ephson not only sponsors the Farrow & Ball team, but also plays regularly and has introduced his three children – Ciara, 18, Patrick, 16, and Ludo, 13 – to the game. They now share his keen enthusiasm and all play for their respective schools. ‘They steal my ponies all the time,’ he jokes.

Ephson, who describes himself as a ‘serial entrepreneur’, bought the successful specialist paint and wallpaper manufacturer, Farrow & Ball with his partner and lifelong friend Tom Helme in 1992. Before then he set up and sold a specialist food and drink business and

Above Winning the Holden White Cup at Cowdray Park. From left, Martin Ephson, Adrian Wade, the Marchioness of MilfordHaven, Ignus Du Plessis and Leroux Hendriks worked in corporate finance.

‘Tom told me about a business with brilliant products which nobody seemed to know about, and asked me to have a look,’ recalls Ephson. Back then, although Farrow & Ball paints were renowned among the cognoscenti for their quality, the Dorsetbased company, founded in the 1930s, had an annual turnover of barely £600,000 and employed just 15 staff.

‘My mother told me as a child that the only good school report I had said I showed a good sense of colour,’ laughs Ephson, who cheerfully admits that he knew little about the paint industry at first. ‘But we could see even then that it had great quality. We bought the company in 1992 and simply superimposed modern management skills, from admin to finance and marketing.’

Over the past 15 years, the company’s reputation has grown, while retaining its commitment to quality. Success has followed: by 2006 the company had an annual turnover of more than £30m, supplying 33 countries including Japan and the US, and there are now 250 staff.

Achieving this success was hard work for both Ephson and Helme: ‘It was seven days a week, 364 days a year for most of that time – but we enjoyed ourselves enormously, serving products we felt passionate about to customers we could identify with.’

It was during this time that Ephson was introduced to polo. ‘I was working very intensely and I desperately needed something to act as a foil for my work,’ he says. ‘Some great friends of mine, Piers and Paula Fletcher, play casually at Tidworth and they had urged me for years to have a go myself, knowing that I would love it. I used to ride as a child, but the style is quite different. I went on the novices’ course at Tidworth, where they teach you all the basics – and in a very polite way demonstrate how appalling you really are. Afterwards, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it much earlier – polo combines just about everything you want from sport: speed, adrenalin rush, hand-eye coordination and team-work.’

Ephson’s initial involvement was gradual, playing low-goal chukkas and tournaments in 1999, moving on to buying ponies and, slowly but surely, progressing to a higher level. In the past two years, he says ‘I have found a level I love – 8-goal. It’s a huge amount of fun, intensely competitive and I have had a reasonable degree of success with it.’

During the season, Ephson usually plays three times a week, alternating mainly between Cowdray and Tidworth. His Farrow & Ball team has achieved new heights, winning the Holden White cup in 2005 and reaching five 8-goal finals or semi-finals last year.

In July 2006, Ephson and Helme sold Farrow & Ball to a private equity firm for an undisclosed sum, but he retains the right to the name for the team, which he continues to sponsor himself. Now aged 50, Ephson continues to play and support the game. ‘I’m probably fitter than most people my age,’ he says. ‘That said, I am definitely on the downward slope compared to my children and it is almost impossible to refuse them my horses.’

Even so, he adds that in the past year or so he has had ‘great fun’ playing in a team with them in low-goal tournaments. His wife Eugenia also follows the family team’s efforts, offering constructive criticism after a game.

As well as retaining the team name, he supports his former company in other ways: ‘Right now I’m using Farrow & Ball paint in my property in Ireland. But they don’t give me a big enough discount!’

Above The classic Brooks Brothers button-down shirt

Left John F Kennedy, with Jackie, wearing the Brooks Brothers classic

16

getting shirty

Inspired by a nineteenth-century polo match, the Brooks Brothers style classic, the button-down polo, is still loved 100 years later

WORDS EDWINA INGS-CHAMBERS There are many iconic designs in fashion. There’s the Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo, the Dior New Look silhouette; even the red sole of a Christian Louboutin shoe has found its own unique place. And then, for men, there’s the Brooks Brothers button-down polo shirt – complete, of course, with button-down collar.

Like any classic, the polo shirt has its own evocative story. In 1898 John Brooks, a grandson of founder Henry Sands Brooks, was in England for sourcing and buying purposes. History records that this particular trip was a most successful one. ‘One day he happened to be at a polo match and noticed that the polo players had specially designed shirts,’ recounts John Hind, managing director of Brooks Brothers in the UK and the man behind the house’s 11,000 sq ft flagship London store that opened in September. ‘These special shirts featured soft collars that were fastened down so that they wouldn’t flap around during play. So he took one back to the USA, designed a new one and that was where the button-down originated.’

The shirt, originally called ‘the polo’, was an instant hit, and it has been loved by such style luminaries as John F Kennedy, Clark Gable, F Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Andy Warhol and Gianni Agnelli.

Hind says that part of its appeal was the new level of comfort it offered – a factor that was revolutionary in its time. ‘Prior to that, gentleman and businessmen used to have separate starched collars and cuffs,’ he explains. These were not just very formal but also very stiff and with little give to them. ‘The button-down was a fully constructed shirt so was more comfortable on the skin.’ It was also easier to launder.

The shirt offered comfort, a break from the traditional, and it was a popular choice with soldiers returning from the war in 1918, who gladly cast off their uniforms and replaced them with the shirt that has become better known as the ‘button-down’. It even became a fashion item, finding great favour in the jazz years of the 1920s, and it was offered in different colours (including pink) which also helped to set it apart.

To this day it is one of the company’s best-selling items. Brooks Brothers has, of course, always sought to be an originator for the discerning customer since it opened its doors in New York on April 7, 1818. Its oft-referenced mission statement at the time was clear: ‘To make and deal only in merchandise of the best quality, to sell it at a fair profit only, and to deal only with people who seek and are capable of appreciating such merchandise.’

One of the firm’s first inspirational approaches was the introduction of high quality ready-to-wear clothing. This proved popular with adventurers, and also businessmen at a time when they were travelling the globe and were in need of practical, stylish clothes but had little spare time in which to find it. Sound familiar? Little wonder, then, that they should have achieved the same ideal with a shirt that is loved for the same reasons today as it was over 100 years ago.