Latest News

Welcome to our July water polo club news! -

Welcome to our July News! It’s great to see that most clubs have been able to return to normal training and athletes are going through the pain of finding their water legs again. Who knew swimming was so much effort! The training schedules have been intense as clubs prepare for the BWPL which is due to resume in September. Some clubs have been fortunate enough to have already played some competitive matches.

Enfield have resumed all of their water polo sessions after the lockdown. They play competitive water polo all year round and their teams compete in the men’s, women’s and junior London Water Polo Summer and Winter Leagues.  They welcome members of all ages and nationalities so if you live or work near Southgate Leisure Centre in London do contact them.

Enfield training session

Sevenoaks Water Polo enjoying some in-pool wrestling

Sevenoaks Water Polo have also been training hard (including practising water wrestling if the picture below is anything to go by!). The club are also looking to recruit new players so if you are aged 9+ and a confident swimmer this could be a great opportunity to get involved with the club if you live in the area.

Hillingdon water polo fun tournament

Hillingdon have held a fun tournament to remind players what a match is like and to give some new members their first experience of a water polo game.

The Midlands Water Polo 2021 Youth League competition started in June. The competition has mixed teams of boys and girls from all around the Midlands region and is so popular that there are two leagues, Youth 1 and Youth 2. It would be great to hear from you if your club is involved in this competition.

Congratulations to Rotherham Metro’s U16 squad who put on a dominant display in the Northern League on 27 June and took the top spot. A lot of work went into getting the tournament on safely so very well done to all the organisers and volunteers who made this event such a success. Wonderful to see people back competing.

Rotherham Metro U16

We have recently celebrated Volunteers’ week. Water polo would not be able to operate at all without the army of volunteers that keep the sport going. A big THANK YOU to everyone who donates their time and energies to the sport. It is difficult to single out one person for special mention but we have made an exception for Elliot McHugh, Penguin Men’s first team and GBR U19 water polo goalkeeper, for his work representing the sport on Swim England’s Youth Advisory Panel where he is Vice-Chair. Thank you Elliott – we appreciate everything you are doing to promote the sport!

Elliot McHugh between the sticks

A number of clubs are looking to recruit new members. We set out below the fliers for Bridgefield and Morley water polo clubs.

So what are we looking forward to next month…The British Festival of Water Polo including the Men’s British Championships of course! The event is taking place at Cheltenham Lido on 3rd and 4th July. There are 6 women’s teams involved – Tyldesley Ladies, City of Manchester, City of Sheffield, Coventry, City of Liverpool and Hucknall, and in the men’s event the teams competing are Lancaster, Manchester, Sheffield, Invicta, Cheltenham, and Sutton & Cheam. Timings are set out in the poster below. Well worth going to watch if you can!

We are also looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics where twenty-two teams (twelve for men and ten for women) will compete for the gold medals. The first matches in the women’s game will be played on 24 July with the men’s game starting on 25 July. Unfortunately, there will be no teams from Great Briatin at the games but the action will make for exciting viewing.

That’s it for this month. Hopefully next month there will be lots of news as clubs get back to competition. If you have any news you would like us to showcase please contact us at ah@waterpoloengland.org

2 responses to “Welcome to our July water polo club news!”

  1. Mike Aish says:

    It would be great to do a feature on Coventry wp. Huge membership increase, new Eggbeaters mini polo and our first year in the brand new Alan Higgs Centre

    • cheerychris says:

      Hi Mike,
      Thanks for your suggestion; we’d be delighted to cover the developments at Coventry Water Polo, and any other clubs which have a story to tell. Please draft a piece complete with compliant pics (and videos) and email to Anne Huck at ah@waterpoloengland.org who compiles our monthly newsletter, and we’ll get it published as soon as we can.
      Best wishes
      Chris
      WPE Admin

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.