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the WRIGht stuff To head up the HPA requires experience, confidence and a clear idea of what lies ahead. Herbert Spencer meets the man for the job
The Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA), rather unusually, now has a polo professional as its chairperson. Not a professional player, mind you, but a man who has spent 17 years running a polo club as his own business. Brigadier John Wright’s experience at Tidworth, the UK’s biggest little club (it once had more playing members than Guards) will stand him in good stead as he leads the HPA through what he admits is ‘a difficult time for polo, given the present economic climate.’ Wright was elected for a four-year term as chairman beginning last November, succeeding Nicholas Colquhoun-Denvers. ColquhounDenvers and previous HPA chairs were businessmen with day jobs in fields other than polo. For Wright, however, polo was his sole
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business interest from which he earned his living as a hands-on, professional club manager – and a highly successful one at that. Tidworth Polo Club in Wiltshire had been the home of army polo since 1907. ‘I took on Tidworth in 1995, as a sole trader, when the army decided it could no longer afford to keep the club going,’ Wright explained. ‘Back then, we had only 45 playing members, mainly military. Today, there are some 150, both military and civilian – the second-largest playing membership in the country. Seventeen years ago, we were lucky to get just a few hundred spectators for our main events; recently, we’ve had as many as 4,500.’ Wright, 72, has now ‘retired’ from his Tidworth business in order to concentrate on his new post as HPA chairman. He views the coming years
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of his chairmanship with a mixture of pragmatic pessimism and determined optimism. ‘Because of the recession, and with no end to the economic downturn in sight, polo is likely to see some rather difficult times,’ he says. ‘I don’t think we’ll see much growth, if any, in the sport this year. Some of the smaller clubs may struggle and, sadly, some low-goal and medium-goal players may have to drop out for financial reasons. ‘On the other hand, our high-goal season seems pretty robust, with team patrons from England and abroad bringing in top professional players to make our 22-goal season the most cosmopolitan in the world. It appears likely we’ll again have 16 teams for the Gold Cup this year. ‘Of course, most of our polo is played at lower handicap levels and at small clubs, but, like it or
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Brigadier John Wright with Nicholas Colquhoun-Denvers, outgoing HPA chairman
