What a trip...

A trip of a lifetime? I think I could describe my week in Zimbabwe as that! The Zimbabwe Open is the only ‘professional’ polocrosse tournament in the world… by professional, I mean we don’t get to win money but we get flights and everything else paid for and get to be treated very well for a week! The competition has four teams, sponsored by a company and ‘patron’ like in polo. On the Wednesday evening, a ball is held where four ‘wildcard’ players are auctioned off to the highest bidders to form the final teams. The teams play each other on Friday and Saturday with the highest two teams playing in Sunday’s final. Along with my UK teammates, Guy Robertson and Greg Sargeant, we formed the ‘northern hemisphere’ invitees!

Flying into Zimbabwe I was really keen to catch up with old friends and see the country I last knew back in 1996 when I spent eight of the best months of my life there playing polocrosse, skydiving, watching elephants and hippos in the back yard… just enjoying everyday African life! After seeing the terrible scenes of devastation on the news and hearing of the country’s demise through friends, I was apprehensive to see for myself what state the country was in. To be honest, it was hard to gain a true picture as we stayed in the capital, Harare, for the duration. Although the country had been bought to its knees, and I saw terrible poverty in parts, there was an air of cautious optimism that improvements were happening – shops were well stocked and fuel was becoming more freely available. A stark contrast to last year, I was told.

On the party front, nothing much had changed, with beers thrust into our hands from the moment we stepped onto the tarmac to set the tone for the first half of the week! The worldwide polocrosse community is very sociable, with the Zimbabweans surely taking first prize! The Ball on Wednesday evening attracted 500 people and the bidding for the ‘wildcard’ players was fierce, with an Australian player, Lance Anderson, going for a staggering US$11,000! My team, Renaissance Capital, bid for another Australian, Beau Moore, who coincidently worked for me two years ago. At just 18 years of age, Beau is a truly talented sports and horseman and it was great to have him in our team. My other team mates included an old Kent Target (my UK club) team mate in South African, Andy Heynes… the most competitive man on earth and one who you want playing with you rather than against you!

Each team had a pool of 12 horses, and I was fairly confident that I could get a decent game out of my allocated horses. Our first game was up against Capicol, full of world class players. We had a dream game and beat them by 9 goals… However, our next game was up against the favourites, Koala Park, so named as it was stacked with top Aussie players! We didn’t fare as well, but we were confident we would go through to the finals. However, our fate was sealed as we watched in amazement as Capicol scored an incredible 9-0 chukka to overcome Koala Park in the last chukka of the game. With a target of 36 goals in our last game against Millers to get to the finals on a ‘goals for’ countback, we ourselves put in a pretty good 7-0 effort in our last chukka to score an agonising 35 goals! Still it meant we could kick back and watch a hard-fought final, won by Koala Park.

It was a really special way to end the polocrosse season for me. Now, back to work and normality for a while! I have just spent this pas weekend building an all singing and dancing climbing frame for Jack’s 4th birthday. The thing has taken me 10 hours to build (my DIY skills are a little hazy) and taken up our entire garden… still it was worth it to see the excitement on his face!