Malta Polo Club to play Guards in historic CHOGM event

A team from the Malta Polo Club will play against a team of from the Guards Polo Club as part of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. 

The Windsor-based Guards Polo Club is heavily associated with the British Royal Family – Queen Elizabeth II is its patron and her husband Prince Philip is its president. The match will bear significant interest to the Prince, as it was where he learned to play polo when he was stationed on the island with the Royal Navy between 1949 and 1951.

He was taught by his uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who held the position of President of the Malta Polo Club for several years.

As Prince Philip later recalled: “I had just got as far as wielding a stick in a polo pit and doing some stick and ball practice on a pony before the [Second World] war broke out. It was 12 years before I started again in Malta under the eye of my uncle, the great ‘Marco’ himself.”

The unique polo match will be played on Saturday 28 November and will be the last international match to be played on Malta Polo Club’s historic, packed earth ground; the same ground on which polo was played back in 1868. The club is set to transform this ground into a grass field of play in time for the 2016 season.

“We are honoured to be working with CHOGM 2015 and our friends at Malta Polo Club to be part of such a prestigious polo match in one of the sport’s most historic venues,” Guards Polo Club CEO Neil Hobday said in a statement. “We already feel a great affinity with the Malta Polo Club through our Founder and President, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, learning to play here and so it is wonderful that we can bring a little bit of Guards Polo Club to this Mediterranean island in November.”

“Malta has long served as a bridge between North Africa and Europe,” Malta Polo Club president Karl Galea said. “Now, as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting host for 2015, this important island is providing a platform for Commonwealth countries to come together to build bridges of cooperation.

“Malta Polo Club is honoured to have been invited by the organising committee of CHOGM 2015 to participate in this historic event, which will be attended by over 50 Commonwealth member states and their respective heads of government - further underlining the Commonwealth’s global reach, not only in the field of international politics, but in sport, and in particular, polo – a sport played in virtually every Commonwealth member state.

“We are delighted to add to our already impressive history by hosting this most important game. The Club is proud of its role in the development of polo for almost 150 years and the team here at Malta Polo Club looks forward to showcasing a match in front of such an illustrious audience. In addition, the collaboration with our reciprocal club, the UK’s Guards Polo Club, provides a powerful and unique reminder of the origins of the sport, strengthening the historic links between Malta Polo Club and Guards Polo Club, the most prestigious polo club worldwide.”