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Antony Fanshawe As the England team coach at the FIP IX Polo World Cup, Antony Fanshawe recounts his first-hand experience of the excitement and disappointment of international events illustration PHIL DISLEY
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Being asked to coach England for the FIP IX Polo World Cup in San Luis, Argentina, was both a surprise and an honour. It is not very often that one gets a chance to inflict one’s polo theories on others as there always seem to be more ‘experts’ around a polo field than one can ever get on it. Ha! At last! The team of Nick Britten-Long, Ed Hitchman, Max Charlton and Jack Richardson had done extremely well to qualify from the European zone played in Italy in September. Two teams qualified from the zone and it was a very unlucky French team that got left behind by narrowly losing to both Italy and England. The French players must have been miffed to be beaten by an Italian team featuring three Argentines. Huge thanks to Alan Kent for coaching in Italy and to Richard Britten-Long for helping with some of the huge costs involved in taking the team to Italy. Also to the team themselves as at the end of a very long season there are many good reasons for not sending one’s tired horses to Italy. The 10 teams to qualify were Argentina, Brazil, Chile (holders), Pakistan, India, Mexico, USA, Italy, Australia and England. These were separated into two leagues playing over two weeks for a spot in the final. We drew, in order of play, Chile, USA, Australia and Brazil. Strings of horses were drawn from a pool of 300 horses and, all in all, our string was not too bad. How do you mount 10 teams to play a minimum of four games each? Huge thanks to Miguel Amieva and Juan Ruiz Guiniazo and team, who were tasked with getting this huge string ready and also for giving all the teams an idea of which horse did what. As teams are only allowed one stick and ball session and one practice before the tournament starts, this was crucial information. To mount one
player from 10 horses in this time frame would be testing, to mount four can be a nightmare. How do you divide up a string of horses between four players and not lose the team spirit? It is easier to ‘borrow’ a player’s girlfriend than his best pony! Arguments and resentment thrive: ‘who’s going to play that mare?’ etc. Not great for team spirit at all, but this is the coach’s most important job: to ‘umpire’ what the players do when they are sorting out the individual strings (with seven horses each). Nick volunteered to play the worst seven horses, which was crucial, as the better players must have the better horses. I
Any player on a bad horse has to keep it very simple and, as the game develops and the horses get better, so should the team did not envy Nick’s challenge, but he acted without complaint. One big advantage both Italy and England had was that we had played to qualify the week before and so already knew how we would ideally line up. Now we had to work out which horses would best suit each position and player. We played with Nick as a combination of number 1 and blocking on our set plays and on their set plays as a 4 and blocking whoever he was told to. There are no 10-goalers on great horses so man marking is possible. We thought that Ed (captain) had better have easy horses, to play fairly deep and remind everyone that he might lack
speed for any long plays. Also that the team should try to dive on the ball, leaving it to Ed to sweep up, and that he should cut out any attacks early especially if we forced the other team into playing backhands. He should not get too deep as this would enable the other team to bring the ball up behind him. A very talented horseman, who rarely made mistakes, Ed had a great tournament. We also agreed that Max should have as much power as possible and play at 3 – not as a playmaker but more as an old-style number 2 breaking up any rhythm the other team found and making goals. He was comparatively well mounted and made a huge contribution throughout the tournament. It is truly a blessing to coach talented players who have to be told to slow down! But it was also important not to use up horses for any other reason than winning the ball and then using it well. Jack would have a combination of good and bad horses. His ‘job’ on the field would be to keep it simple on the worst horses and then bring the skills when he had a bit of horse under him. A difficult job especially for young players, who see the ball big often, but on the wrong horse end up losing a play they can do with their eyes shut on their own horses. Jack played great with growing maturity, pulled out some wonderful goals and crucially did not sulk when Max and Ed got the better strings. I think the practice match did leave us a little nervous of the team’s abilities as we only cruised the horses, but in reality this level of polo is extremely even throughout the poloplaying world. Any team at this competition could have beaten any other team on their day. So it is a shame that FIP does not take the issue of handicapping seriously enough www.hurlinghampolo.com
