2021 Review – Area 2
As we prepare for the 2022 season, our Clubs take a look back at their 2021 successes! Area 2 Polocrosse, made up of all Pony Club members based in the North East, tell us all about their 2021:
2021 has been a fantastic year for Area 2 as we finally got all of our plans off the ground! We had 12 players competing at UKPA and PC tournaments with even more attending regular training. We started the year off by running socially distanced sessions in hired arenas before moving to our grass pitch in May, where we held chukka evenings twice a month, proving popular with everyone from our tiniest to our tallest – we even had a beach polocrosse session!
Through dedication from our players and their parents, we had Area 2 representatives at every grass tournament as well as Arena competitions and training camps. However we weren’t just attending these events; we came away with some fantastic results including grade wins (IJs, OJs, E and D Grade), Best Player, Position and Horse awards with the icing on the cake being Millie Dacosta Evans and Katie Lowdon-King being selected to play for England in the Pony Club Home Nations (which they won both Juniors and Overall).
Though we are a small (not quite) club, the party atmosphere is always present in the Area 2 camp…especially after a 6 hour drive! The sideline support is always fantastic and our community spirit is something we really pride ourselves on and hope to continue into 2022 and beyond. At Pony Club Championships we were lucky enough to have Jack Brown attend to help coach all 4 teams, ending in a gripping golden goal for our Pink Team Juniors (which he admitted even he was nervous for!) and we have our fingers crossed he will make the trip up North more often to assistant coach in 2022.
Away from the competiton side of things, 2021 saw lots of new faces picking up rackets and having a go. We did Branch taster days and PC Camps as well as regularly coaching at the Braes of Derwent and Finchale Riding School. Even though it is not always possible for these players to get out and compete, we had a brilliant time introducing people and ponies to the sport.
We have already begun on foot and mounted sessions, with sights set on the Bombers Arena Challenge in April being our first competitive outing. Alongside this we have four players on the Player Development Pathway, three of which will be taking their UKPA Activators Course soon so that our new members feel as supported as possible. Our focuses for this year are to bring in even more players, especially some PJs, and in general encourage more riders to take the plunge and start competing.
