History of Dorset Water Polo

Water polo has been played in Dorset since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Arguably the very first structured form of the modern game ever played was on 13 July 1876 off Bournemouth Pier between two teams with seven competitors on each side. The goals were marked by four flags and positioned to the west of the pier 50 yards apart. After a “severe struggle the ball burst but the players were undaunted and went on to display their aquatic accomplishments for some time”. Another fixture was held a week later where again the India rubber ball (the inside of a football) burst during a game, which was described as “aquatic handball”. The occasion is now marked with a plaque at the end of the pier.

In those days Bournemouth was part of Hampshire but, since the boundary changes of 1974, has become a Dorset town with the club, which was formed in the nineteenth century, now competing in our Dorset Water Polo Leagues as well as the Hampshire League.

The Dorset & District Water Polo League was formed around 1898 by Bridport, Dorchester, Weymouth and Yeovil, with Yeovil winning the 1899 league and Weymouth in 1900. Fixtures were held on a Thursday evening, with Yeovil playing in the town’s Baths, Dorchester in the Poundbury Stream and Bridport in the Polo Basin at West Bay. At the end of each season, the Champions played a combined team from the 'Rest of the League'. Lyme Regis also had a team, although they didn’t play in the league.

Another club with a long history of the game is Bridport which, following a meeting at the Town Hall in 1898, formed the Bridport Swimming Club. An area of the harbour at West Bay was named the ‘Polo Basin’ and designated as an area to play in, and a referee’s stand was built on the piles with a goal tied to the outside of one of the piers for practice. An annual club regatta was held in the summer, a custom that lasted until the late twentieth century, and of which the water polo match held in front of huge crowds was reported as being the prime event, following the swimming gala. Other than league matches, various friendly games were played against teams such as ‘A’ Company VBDE, Captain v Vice Captains teams, and Residents v Visitors. In 1910 two thousand spectators turned up to watch the town team play Frome, and television footage from the 1920’s/1930’s shows Bridport, having moved their pitch from the ‘Polo Basin’ in the harbour to the river, playing in front of huge crowds. A spectator stand was built and regular matches were played there until the late 1980’s. Bridport’s most fruitful period was in the 1930’s, when a team went on tour to Ireland.

We can assume that water polo continued to flourish when soldiers returned from the First World War as when the Dorset County Amateur Swimming Association was formed in 1931, it paid for a senior men’s championship shield which is still competed for today. The first winners of this trophy were Bridport; the only time the town lifted the championship.

After the Second World War, Portland became the supreme force in Dorset water polo, winning the Championship Shield 21 years on the trot. During this time, Weymouth also had a strong water polo side and there was a great deal of local rivalry. It was also a time when water polo was the main event and the crowd was attracted to the game more so than the swimming gala, which often preceded it. Weymouth went on to win in 1971 and 1972. John Restorick was in those championship-winning sides and he was to play again when it was revived more than 30 years later.

Bridport, another leading club at the time, ran three teams and had regular visits from clubs such as the mighty Cheltenham and Weston-super-mare and touring London sides. During the summer, the team was cheered on by hundreds of holidaymakers and locals alike, with a match collection making the club very wealthy. On occasion Dorset’s water polo players had more than just their opponents to contend with. During one match at West Bay, a dead sheep floated into the playing area and on another occasion a dog decided to jump in and join in with the players.

The Dorset League was a flourishing annual competition with teams from Bridport, Portland, Weymouth, Wareham, Lyme Regis and Swanage taking part, and the sport continued to flourish through the post-war period.

By the beginning of the 1970’s, new indoor pools were being built in most major towns in the county and indeed all over the country. Ironically, this contributed to the decline of water polo as the river and the sea was no longer so attractive to play in. It meant also that for those clubs that still played the game in swimming pools, their playing time was often relegated to less sociable hours with games and practices often ending at 10pm.

All through the 1980’s and 1990’s, Bournemouth continued to play in the Hampshire League and still does today. However, from around 1972, the Weymouth and Portland clubs only played the odd game and some players went off to play for Yeovil just over the Somerset border. Bridport continued to play in the River Brit until the late 1980’s when flood alleviation work was undertaken.

However, in the mid 90’s there were the “green shoots” of revival, as the Wessex Water Polo Club reformed in 1983 started to play in the Wiltshire league and then in the Bristol & West league, winning promotion to Division One in the 1994/95 season. The club reformed in 2001 becoming Weymouth & Portland playing in the Hampshire league and becoming either winners or runners-up many times. It is also now is a major player in our Dorset leagues.

Bridport continued to play a single annual fixture against the lifeboat men during RNLI week at Lyme Regis off the Cobb until 1994, when some of the old players at Bridport set up a new team at the new local leisure centre. The team trained weekly and started playing regular friendly matches. Without a structured club during the latter 1990’s, Weymouth players came to Bridport to train. As part of Bridport’s revival, they returned to the river at West Bay for several summer matches until their centenary year in 1998, when the Health & Safety brigade deemed it unsafe to swim in a polluted river. The mere fact that swimmers and players had taken to these waters for the past 100 years without harm seemed beyond their comprehension! Fortunately a newly constructed outer harbour created an area that, whilst tidal, enabled the sport to return once more to its ‘cultural home’ in 2004, where a summer series of matches against local and travelling teams continues to this day in front of crowds of up to 450.

In 2004/05 a group of water polo enthusiasts under the umbrella of Dorset County ASA met and decided to run a number of mini polo taster sessions. These prove very popular with around sixty youngsters turning up on each occasion. Encouraged by this positive response, they decided to form four leagues: Key Stage 2 (11 & under), Key Stage 3 (14 & under), Junior (under 18) and senior. It was the first time since 1972 that the senior men’s competition had been competed for.

The formation of the Dorset mini polo and water polo leagues has been a huge success. Recently a Ladies League has been added and a from a small base of around 70/80 players playing the game 4 years ago, we now have in excess of 400 people participating. A delightful aspect of this growth has been the number of girls taking up the sport for the first time.

On top of this, our development team led by Fred Fowler has been extremely busy encouraging and running mini polo sessions in schools and leisure centres and we now have hundreds of school children playing the game on a regular basis Today, we have teams from across the county not only competing in our domestic competitions, but also in regional tournaments. New teams such as Christchurch & New Milton Seagulls have embraced the game and Blandford has returned to the fold after many years absence.

Since 2008, the county has competed in a number of regional competitions and has  also revived an annual challenge match between our near neighbours, Devon.

There is still much to do and as the standard of play has risen enormously, so have our ambitions. We see this has a first step to our players playing on the national stage. Indeed, Weymouth & Portland has already had some experience in playing in the National League. Who knows, one day we may even have players playing for their country. That would indeed be a day to savour!