Warwickshire Cup

Cirencester Park is the oldest of England’s exiting clubs, founded in 1894 on the vast Gloucestershire estate of the Earl Bathurst. Up north that same year, the townsfolk of Lemington presented the Warwickshire Polo Club with a massive silver cup that is today the oldest of all the country’s high-goal trophies – and its most travelled. e club at Leamington ceased to exist at the beginning of the Great War, leaving the Warwickshire Cup in the hands of the captain of the last team to win it in 1913. en, in 1932, he presented it to Roehampton where it was played for between that London club, Hurlingham and various international high-goal teams. After Roehampton gave up polo in 1955, it passed the trophy on to Cirencester Park where it remains today as the prize in the club’s premier tournament. e Warwickshire Cup tournament has been an important fi xture on the English high-goal calendar since 1959, but with varying fortunes. In recent years, because of an increasingly crowded season, it has drawn fewer entries. is season, however, it started moving back up to strength with 10 competing teams.

‘ at is more entries than the Warwick-

Cirencester Park’s president the Earl Bathurst, left, with Countess Bathurst and Christopher Hanbury, chairman of the HPA. Black Bears patron Urs Schwartzenbach grasps Warwickshire Cup for the sixth time.

shire has had in 15 years or so,’ said former Cirencester Park chairman Mark Vestey. Support from Gloucester-based teams helped make the diff erence, with Black Bears and Foxcote/Wildmoor from Cirencester Park, Evolution/Laird from Beaufort and Lovelocks from Longdole joining the fray.

Lovelocks, with young Charlie Hanbury, did particularly well in the 22-goal tournament losing by only one goal, 10-9, in its semi-fi nal against Spencer McCarthy’s Emlor. In the other semi, Urs Schwartzenbach’s Black Bears comfortably defeated Foxcote/Wildmoor 9-5 to earn a place in the fi nals.

A crowd of several thousand lined both sides of Cirencester Park’s historic Ivy Lodge Ground to watch the teams’ star players – Argentina’s Novilla Astrada brothers for Black Bears and Chile’s Donoso siblings for Emlor.

Emlor opened the scoring, but Black Bears were ahead 2-1 at the end of the fi rst, taking a lead that increased period by period. It was clear from the start that Black Bear’s massive pony power, demonstrated earlier in the Queens Cup, had Emlor out-horsed. e Gloucestershire team was leading 7-2 in the fourth when Emlor staged a comeback that reduced their defi cit to only one goal in the fi fth and fi nal period, but at the fi nal bell it was Black Bear 8, Emlor 6.

So the Warwickshire Cup again went to Black Bears patron Schwarzenbach, as it had last year. e team has now won the trophy a record six times.

It was a reminder that the Swiss patron has been fi elding high-goal teams far longer than anyone else playing in England today. ■

This page: Emlor’s Nacho Gonzalez hooks Black Bears’ Javier Novilla Astrada.

Above left: Battling brothers still friends, l. to r., Javier Novilla Astrada, Jose Donoso, Eduardo Novilla Astrada, Gabriel Donoso.