Polo in a local authority park?
Regarded by some as ‘Polo’s coming home’, to others the prospect of turning a sports field in residential South West London into a polo field for a three-day international tournament couldn’t be any more unusual, says Siobhan Harper
Hurlingham in South West London is the UK spiritual and historical home of polo, having hosted the Olympic tournament in 1908 when the GB team won gold and silver. After the War, the land was compulsorily purchased mainly for housing and, until last year, the site of the original polo fields provided various sport and athletic facilities for local residents. But for three days next month, an expected audience of 5,000 spectators will see Hurlingham Park once again thunder under the hooves of polo ponies as the World Polo Series updates polo in the same way that Twenty20 has revitalised cricket.
Three years after conception, and with the invaluable expertise of industry consultants TurfTrax and contractors
AT B Sports Solutions, the pitch is almost ready for play. Charlie Froggatt, Business Development Manager for World Polo and who has worked hand in hand with the team responsible for preparing the surface, is pleased with the progress: “Our objective is to bring polo into cities so it is essential to have a central location – and in this case we have a site which is probably the world’s most significant polo turf.
“The project has required substantial investment and vision, both on our part and by the contractors, to be able to convince the council we could make this into a sporting arena despite the continual public access. As you would expect, it has taken time and a lot of meetings to demonstrate this is a positive development for the area and that there will be lasting benefits for the residents and council alike.
“There were issues along the way but, ultimately, we all have the same vision – and the end result will be a compact stadium with seating for 5,000 spectators plus marquees for corporate hospitality. The pitch will be shorter than the standard size, and the rules have been updated and enhanced to improve the spectator experience.”
Dr Richard Earl, managing Director of TurfTrax Ground Management Systems, has worked with World Polo since the project’s inception. “We started looking at a range of possible sites for the event and eventually we decided to bring it back to the home of polo,” he says. “Originally there were two full-size pitches here, one of which is now under bricks and mortar and the other has shrunk considerably and up until recently housed a cinder athletics track and facilities for long jump, pole vault, high jump and javelin. All these issues needed to be addressed before we could have polo back at Hurlingham. Our remit was to carry out site surveys to establish exactly what was there, then provide detailed specification and drawings for tender. ATB Sports Solutions made the successful bid.
“It was a difficult construction because as it has been separated into several phases. Parts of the park were long-established sports pitches having a sandy loam soil; others, for example the old running track, contained infill material that needed to be removed and replaced with material that would marry with the other surfaces around it. The key thing for polo is surface uniformity, so we had to import a lot of material that was similar to the indigenous soil.”
Removing 1,000 m3 of material and replacing it wasn’t easy and it occupied 250 lorry loads in and out of a busy suburb. But the most complex element of the project was timing, with much of the work needing to take place over the winter.
“It was a difficult time of year to try and move earth and to establish grass. We had to update the specification as a result of the weather because, initially, we had intended to seed it but once the weather closed in there just wouldn’t have been enough time to establish the pitch ready for the event. Fortunately we were able to source suitable turf from Inturf which blends in well with the rest of the park.”
It took 4,500 m2 of turf to fill in the various athletic facilities but Rob of ATB is pleased with the results: “The project was signed off last October and work was ready to start in November. The wet weather started almost immediately once we were on site and really made progress slow and difficult, with the works having to stop on several occasions due to poor site conditions. As time was passing, the idea of seeding was superseded by the use of 100 per cent rye grass turf, which suited the cooler temperatures during installation and it will also be hard wearing. This matches the existing grass types and further blending will take place with the overseeding of the whole park in late spring to develop a uniform sward.”
Unusually nowadays, the team was fortunate enough to encounter a hard frost which assisted in site workability and actually helped move the project on, as Rob explains: “We started turfing in the second week of January and the cold snap around that time made the site workable, allowing us to get on with laying the turf. If we hadn’t been able to complete that turfing our fallback plan was to use 40 mm turf which could have been laid in March. However, from a cost point of view, it was preferable to use the standard variety. Despite being back in use to players a week after being laid, the turf established well, with roots at 125 mm already.”
One consideration throughout the project has been that the park should remain in use, and Rob admits that working in such a public environment has proved challenging: “We knew the park would be available for casual use, but it looks like they will be playing football up until the end of April.” The site will not close and the residents will not be prevented from using it at any stage, although formal matches will conclude at the end of the season and the team hopes users will respect what has been achieved. Regular meetings have been held with the local Residents Association which, on the whole, has been very supportive despite the various interruptions to the use of the facilities.
Post-event, the team is certain the residents and council alike will be pleased with what is being handed back to them, as Richard explains: “They will have a lot more flexibility in the future because they can move pitches around. Their number one pitch for rugby was actually too short, but it will now be the right size. We have also removed and replaced what was a rather unsightly perimeter fence.”
The project has three phases – the construction, which is now completed, the preparations in the build-up to the event and finally the re-instatement of the site. The second phase, which started on April 20, involves sand top-dressing, verti-draining to loosen the compaction, fertiliser and herbicide application as well as mowing and general agronomy and the installation of a temporory irrigation system, which ATB has developed for its own demands on projects such as Hurlingham, which will continue until the event begins on June 5. The re-instatement of the site, which will span a seven-week period, will follow a similar programme to enable it to be returned to rugby and football for the autumn.
‘We were very pleased to be given the opportunity to work on this project at Hurlingham Park, as the project brief encompasses not only the construction stage but also a grow-in period, preparation for the event and re-instatement afterwards” comments Rob.
Polo: a beginner’s guide
Polo is played by teams of four players and every player is handicapped on a scale from -2 to 10 goals, with beginners starting at -2 and 10 being the best – and there are only ever around 12 players sporting a 10-goal handicap in the world at any one time. Each match/tournament has a handicap limit for entry and the sum of the four players’ handicaps must be within those set tournament limits.
For low and intermediate goal matches, four chukkas will be played; five are played for medium; six for high goal matches. Players can change ponies at any time, however they usually do this at the end of a chukka.
