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Polo
Farm Sports Club is today one of the premier
centres of sporting development and achievement
in the South-East. In its twenty-plus years
existence it has seen its facilities quite
literally emerge from a derelict orchard
to something its membership and the local
and regional sporting community can be justly
proud. It
is situated in its own grounds about two
miles to the east of Canterbury (Click
here for directions.)
Who,
What ... Why
The
Club is composed of three main sports sections
with individual histories going back very
much further - The
Canterbury Cricket Club (until very
recently Beverley Cricket Club), The
Canterbury Lawn Tennis Club, and Canterbury
Hockey Club. More recently joining these
are our friends from Chartham
Hatch Croquet Club .
Canterbury
Hockey Club has associate sections in
The
Canterbury Ladies Hockey Club, and the
Canterbury Junior Hockey Club. It is
very likely all
sections will fully integrate. The Canterbury
Hockey Club, formed in 1901, recently
celebrared its centenary.
It
was the hockey section's need to move from
its previous site at Kingsmead for better
pitches and facilities that first led to
the search for a new ground. And it was
in the spring of 1977 that clubman Dick
Laslett and his brother Bill bought the
overgrown orchard at Polo Farm that started
everything off. The site's development is
chronicled elsewhere
- suffice to say that by the end of 1981
matches had been played at the new grounds
and celebrated at the new clubhouse!
The
hockey club had been joined at these earliest
stages by the-then Beverley Cricket Club
who themselves
were looking for their own "home" pitches,
and a little afterwards by Canterbury
Lawn
Tennis Club, who felt they could benefit
from a move from their cramped but valuable
town site.
Beverley CC has come to end of an era -
after a tradition almost as long as the
game actually - by
recently changing its name to Canterbury
Cricket Club. It was formed in 1835 and
is one
of
the oldest cricket clubs in the country.
(It's not true that some of the original
team is still playing ... but it is true
the Archeological Trust only scratched the
surface trying to find the long-lost trophy
cabinet ... who'd bury it empty!)
Click
here for poloNEWS
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