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Chairperson’s Blog – July 

Congratulation to Viking on being crowned Open Div1 champions and Friends of Allonby Y Ladies team on being crowned Ladies Div1 Champions. Viking had a number of changed paddlers in their team from last year and still managed to be 8 points clear of Friends of Allonby. 

In the ladies competition Friends of Allonby Y (FOA) and Meridian finished on equal points with FOA winning by goal difference by just two. All four teams will be invited to play at the European Club Champs on the 23rd – 24th September in Essen, Germany. The Div 1 Open battle at the bottom of the table ended with Meridian B relegated to Div 2 whilst Bedford Raiders are promoted with five wins in the playoff games. The playoff game between Div1 Nomad and Div2 Avon was a fantastic game finishing three all at full time with Nomad finally winning with a golden goal in extra time , scoring a penalty shot to make it an exciting finish to the weekend. In the Div 3 / 4 playoff Viking D won and will remain in Div 3 with all the other teams playing Div 4.

I would like to pass on my personal thanks to all the people who helped at the weekend. It was great to have so many non-playing refs to support the Open Div 1, the Ladies Div 1 and also the playoff games. It also made it easier to have the ref committee convene together to deal with a couple disciplinary red cards. So everyone is clear we will not tolerate any verbal abuse towards a ref. Two players received 5 game bans as a result of continual verbally abusive following red cards. I understand that sometimes people over step the mark but they also have to accept the consequences of the rules, which are very clear for red card offence and verbal abuse towards a ref, volunteer or official will not be tolerated. If we don’t have refs and protect them, then we don’t have polo competitions. 
The competition rules for the season past can be found at the following link and the red card regulations are worth a read… Luckily we don’t get too many red cards, let’s hope this remains the case.

https://drive.google.com/…/0Bz9sDVEo0czQZHRpUU43X2lpSU…/view

Last year we delivered over 350 ref assessments and we will continue to support people wanting to be assessed. The committee will continue to organise grade 1 and 2 courses with regions and clubs leading on organising grade 3 and 4 courses. If you or your club members need assessing for next season polo then why not organise a course? Contact refereeing-administrator@canoepolo.org.uk if you need advice on how to do this.

The League entries for next season will be opening next week and the dates will be released as soon as we can get confirmation from a couple of pools.

Important dates for your diary ….
On 9th and 10th September we will be holding the British Canoe Polo National Championships at Nottingham. We would like the event to be a fun event with all standards of teams entering.
Again entries will be opening soon. We have the fantastic National Championship trophies for the competition.

At the London International Polo competition we will also be doing a consultation on our four-year plans. Please feel free to discuss the plans and give us your thoughts on what we are planning and what we can achieve.

 

Have a great summer.
Chris Arrowsmith
Chairperson@canoepolo.org.uk

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