Oxford University Polo Club

The Oxford University Polo Club (often referred to as OUPC) is the Discretionary Full Blue sports club for competitive polo at Oxford University. Founded in 1874, it is one of the four oldest continuing polo clubs worldwide. Its annual Varsity Match against Cambridge University Polo Club, established in 1878, is the second oldest continuing polo fixture in the Western world. It is played at Guards Polo Club, England, usually at the beginning of June.

The last Varsity Match won by Oxford was in 2026, defeating Cambridge 12–0.

A Winter Varsity has also been created due to the growth in Arena Polo. Oxford won the Winter Varsity title in 2022, by 21-0, the biggest varsity win in the club history.

History

Early days The Oxford University Polo Club was founded in 1874 by Walter Hume Long (1854–1929), later Viscount Long of Wraxall and First Lord of the Admiralty.Horace A. Laffaye: The Evolution of Polo. London 2009, p. 24. Together with his group of friends going up from Wiltshire to Oxford, he founded this new club with matches on a cut hay-field in Port Meadow near Wolvercote (Oxford).J. Moray Brown: Polo. London 1896, p. 133. This field, which was 280 yards long by 170 yards wide was to become the foundation for the club's own pologrounds for decades to come.Horace A. Laffaye: The Polo Encyclopedia. London: McFarland 2004, p. 283. Later, the ground was prepared with old turf and could be played in all weather conditions (from 1930 it was also boarded).Captain James J Pearce: Everybody’s Polo. London 1951, p. 30. During the winter months, matches took place on the Bullingdon Club cricket ground, Cowley, as the summer pitch in Port Meadow was subject to flooding from the River Isis.J. Moray Brown: Polo. London 1896, p. 134. The club played all year round, mostly on hirelings (rented polo ponies); playing days were Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the number of playing members seems to have averaged about a dozen. First records show that the club was playing in Hurlingham in 1876 as well as organising an exhibition match between Christ Church and Brasenose College at Christ Church Meadow on 1 July 1877. During the first decade, teams consisted of five members until the set up was replaced in 1883 by the modern game of polo.

The Varsity match against Cambridge was initiated in 1877. The match was played at the Bullingdon Cricket Ground in Oxford on 27 November 1877, making it one of the oldest Varsity matches amongst the Blues Sports at Oxford University. From 1878 until 1939, the match was held at the Hurlingham Club, with the exceptions of 1894 and 1900 and during the First World War (1915–1919) when no games were played.E.D. Miller: Modern Polo. London: 1922, 4th ed, p. 400. As trophies, both clubs awarded commissioned silver coins. The Challenge Cup which is still used today was given by the Hurlingham Club when the match was revived after the war in 1920. Copies of the Challenge Cup were then given to individual players. No trophy was attached to the Oxford University Open Tournament. With a high standard of teams up to 18 goals this tournament was a highlight of the British polo season until the First World War.

From the very beginning of the club many members went on to become first-class polo players. William Kavanagh, who played in the second Varsity match in 1878, became one of the first high-handicapped players and played for England several times against the USA. After helping his side win the 1882 Varsity match, Tommy Hitchcock Sr. soon became one of America's leading players. He captained his national team within three years of leaving and was among the first 10-goal players. His son Thomas Hitchcock, Jr. followed in his father's footsteps. As a 10-goal player he led the U.S. team to victory in the 1921 International Polo Cup, one year after his time at Oxford.Nelson W. Aldrich Jr: Tommy Hitchcock. An American Hero. Fleet Street Publishing Corp. London 1985, p. 120. Around 1900, the Oxford team included the three Nickalls brothers, two of whom went on to represent England.Horace A. Laffaye: The Evolution of Polo. London 2009, p. 139. Their contribution at university level saw Oxford romp to a 15–0 victory in 1898. Five years later, an American arrived at Oxford who was to become another 10-goal player and more famous than any of his predecessors: Devereux Milburn.Horace A. Laffaye: The Evolution of Polo. London 2009, p. 102. Not content with gaining a rowing Blue and being on the swimming team, Milburn guided the polo team to victory in successive Varsity matches, winning by a margin of 14 goals on both occasions. Even swimming and playing polo against the same university on one day was no problem for him.E.D. Miller: Fifty Years of Sport. London: Hurst & Blackett 1923, p. 240. He soon graduated to international level, playing number four for his country in every match between 1909 and 1927. Universally described as "the greatest back there has ever been", in his prime he had no equal.Horace A. Laffaye: The Evolution of Polo. London: Mc Farland & Company 2009, p. 44.He was a pivotal member of the mighty "Big Four", the greatest side to play during that era, and one that changed the way the back position is played. Previously, the English regarded the back's role as similar to a goalkeeper in football, i.e. to stay by the goal and defend. Whereas before, polo was a gentleman's preoccupation, Milburn made a job of it.

Amongst the club coaches were Captain James Pearce, Lord Cowdray and Winston Churchill, who was a keen polo player himself and who came over to Port Meadow frequently from Blenheim Palace to play polo and to help the Oxford Varsity team "by giving them a good gallop and a pipe-opener before the inter[-Varsity]."Captain James Pearce: Everybody’s Polo. London: Robert Hale 1949, p. 31.

Post-war After the Second World War, the OUPC made a fresh start with the help of Henley Polo Club.Henley Polo Club at Friar Park was founded in 1947 by Major Archie David and became part of Guards Club in 1955. Friar Field was left as a spare polo field for Guards. The Varsity match was revived in 1951 and played at Woolmers Field through the courtesy of the former Cambridge player George Lucas and at Cowdray Park through the courtesy of Viscount Cowdray, an Old Oxonian who had represented the Dark Blues in the 1930s and who represented the Hurlingham Polo Association as steward and chairman from 1947 to 1957.Horace A. Laffaye: Polo in Britain. A History. London, MdFarland & Company 2012, p. 168. From 1961 onwards (no match was played in 1960 due to a lack of horses on the Cambridge side), the venue for the match was decided annually, with the choice alternating between universities. Oxford then preferred Kirtlington Park Polo Club, which became the home of the OUPC in 1954. Since 1994, the Varsity match is played at Guards Polo Club (with exceptions in 1995, 2006 and 2009).

During the late sixties and early seventies, when Charles, Prince of Wales played for the Cambridge side, polo at Oxford enjoyed a winning streak with eight wins in a row. Ironically, one of the strongest teams ever entered saw this streak ending. In 1974, Syed Shahid Ali and Arturo Goetz were both on three goals, with the remaining players one-goalers. Cambridge could only form a team with a total handicap of minus one but were nonetheless victorious. Many of the players from this period became well-known figures in the polo world. General Sir Redmond Watt played off a two-goal handicap while at university and subsequently became one of the highest rated Old Blue after the war when he peaked at five-goals. Claire Tomlinson (née Lucas), who was rated at nought-goals at university, became one of polo's few true masters of the number one position and the first woman in the world to rise to five goals. She swept away the rule forbidding women in British high-goal and became the first to compete on equal terms with men at the top tier.Horace A. Laffaye: The Evolution of Polo. McFarland & Company: London 2012, p. 207. Her participation in the Varsity Match 1964 as the first female player was a milestone in the history of the match. By disguising herself as a man, she broke the rules simply by creating facts on the ground. In 1966, she became the first female captain of OUPC. It was also through the coaching of her father Arthur Lucas and his Easter Vacation Training Camps at Woolmer's Park, at the home of the Lucas family, that many young riders were encouraged to start playing polo at university.Justin Cartwright: This secret Garden. Oxford revisited. Oxford 2008, p. 164.

Recent years Another milestone was reached in 1994: for the first time in the history of any mixed university sport, the Varsity match teams were both captained by women (Jacqui Broughton, Oxford and Emma Tomlinson, Cambridge). In the early 2000s Oxford had another purple patch with five successive wins in 2007–11. In 2012, the winning streak ended when Oxford, despite fielding a strong +2 team, suffered a 2–13 defeat to Cambridge’s -5 team — largely because they had never trained together. The following year saw an unprecedented rise in membership and club activities under the chairmanship of Andreas Kranke, over 100 new members, the establishment of intercollegiate 'Cuppers' and an intercollegiate Winter League. The 2013 Varsity Match was won 11–3 with the help of new addition Lanto Sheridan, who holds the highest handicap (+4) reached by post-war players while still at university. History was written in 2016 when Oxford claimed a historic 19–0 victory in the Varsity Match, breaking a record that had stood unchallenged for 103 years, and the club also gained Discretionary Full Blue status amongst the Oxford Blues sports. 2016 also saw the launch of a Winter Varsity Match for arena polo and a renewal of the Atlantic Cup (previous established in 1920Polo Monthly, 1920, p. 256), bringing together university teams from Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford and Yale, with Oxford coming out the winner, and for the first time winning the University Challenge Cup at the Goldin Metropolitan Club in Tianjin, China. 2017 saw the beginning of a new Varsity tradition with the inaugural Claire Lucas Ladies Cup at Kirtlington with teams from Cambridge, Oxford and St Andrew's, which Oxford won undefeated. In the same academic year, the LaMartina Varsity was won against Cambridge 5-1 and the University Challenge Cup was won for the second time in a row at the Goldin Metropolitan Club in Tianjin. In 2019 the LaMartina Varsity was won 15–1. In 2020, the Arena Varsity Team of 1. Capucine Granchi [Polo Manager] (1st Year, St. Hugh's), 2. Tamara Gibbons [Chairman] (2nd Year, St. Edmund Hall) & 3. Max Rumsey [Captain] (1st Year, Balliol) achieved 3 accomplishments, previously unattained throughout OUPC history. Firstly, they won the Open division at the universities' National Championships, out of 202 teams competing across all divisions. Secondly, they maintained a completely unbeaten season, across all matches & tournaments. Thirdly, they won the accolade "Blues Team of the Year" at the Oxford University Sports Awards, thus reputing them to be "the best sports team at Oxford University". Their chance to win the Varsity was cut short due to COVID-19 restrictions.2025 marked 125 years of Varsity matches, 10 consecutive undefeated years against Cambridge, and the club’s 150th anniversary. In 2026, the sixth Varsity after the pandemic was won by Oxford 12–0, with the Varsity series standing at 70:57 in Oxford’s favour.

Training