It is rare, in the composition of feature articles, to have all your carefully prepared questions answered, without the need to ask any of them! But such is the knowledge, passion and, though he underplays it, depth of conviction in Mike Glover that the story of the City of Manchester Water Polo Club simply pours forth.
He ticks all the boxes, answers all the unasked questions. It is a tale of recent success, future ambition but not forgetting the past 30 years of hard work that has led the club, of which Mike is now chairman, to this point.
‘Well, I mooted it,’ he says, ‘when I went to Plant Hill (as a teacher) 30 years ago…’ Now he feels they have the best set-up for water polo in the country. ‘Yes, polo is now a major sport in Manchester, we’ve had success nationally and we’re gradually establishing mini-polo sessions in lots of surrounding pools, thanks to Jemma Bury (former junior international, Jemma Alderson), our local authority polo development officer – the only one in the country I might add.’
Mike’s pride is perhaps understandable, particularly at the younger end of the sport. This year the club have won the ASA junior men’s title, the ASA junior women’s, the ASA youth women’s and were runners-up in the ASA senior men’s championship. They have 34 players on the national team programmes, which includes regional training centres; they have 14 females on the national teams and 10 former internationals still playing for the club. Names like Kate Lewis, Sarah Pimblett, Aine Hoy are among their female stars, while Ed Scott is the goalkeeper for the junior men’s national team, Rob Rae is vice captain for the junior boys with Peter Hutchinson also in the team.
And they are looking to continue to do well with their youngsters. But it’s also a ‘social’ success. And by that I don’t mean ‘friendly chat’. It’s about getting kids off the streets. Mike continues: ‘We’ve already got a “youth” age group club at Miles Platting and also some kids from Failsworth, who’ve been kicked out of their pool up there. The same thing at Broadway pool and Chorlton, Wythenshawe, Wythington, Levenshulme – all of them have got groups. So if they develop well, they go into the development group here (at Manchester’s Aquatics Centre) and then to the club proper.’
So it’s a good feeder structure? ‘Yes, we’ve got to have that,’ says Mike, pausing before continuing. ‘Some water polo clubs have been known to rely on getting players from somewhere else. We don’t. We’re convinced of the benefit of producing our own players. Manchester City Council has put a lot of money into polo and sponsors us. Places like Levenshulme and Miles Platting are fairly deprived areas with not much for the kids to do. We run a holiday scheme at Miles Platting and we’re getting more than 80 kids at a time. In one week previously, Jemma had 400 contacts from kids wanting to play polo. So it’s taking off. The kids want to play. And we are attracting them from outlying areas as well, though that’s not our prime purpose. That just comes with the territory.’
The result is that at club level, the City of Manchester have three women’s teams in the national league this year. And although their senior men are a bit behind, they are looking at a second senior men’s team. That’s on top of the junior men’s and junior women’s, youth men’s and youth women’s teams.
But are all their players home-grown? ‘No, I didn’t say that,’ continues Mike. ‘We do get players coming in from elsewhere but we don’t poach anyone. The prime thing is that to succeed we have to develop our own. There are just not enough players about. And one of the interesting things is we’re getting quite a lot of competitive swimmers coming into polo because they’re fed up with 5.30am training.’
Tim Dunsbee is the club’s full-time head coach with Julie Allsopp, Mike’s wife, the women’s coach, the aforementioned Jemma Bury as youth coach and former international Kevin Williams coaching the junior boys. They have assistant coaches helping but, Mike says, ‘we are short of coaches and would like more’.
But this is not a story of a shortage of coaches or plea for more. Rather it is an acknowledgement of an outstanding and successful partnership between council and club. A desire on behalf of the council to support sport development (Manchester will stage the ASA and GB polo championships for the next three years) and a desire on behalf of the club to work together and also to declare their gratitude. ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ says Tim Dunsbee. ‘We get great support from the council. It is a very forward-looking partnership. We are the first club in the country to employ a full-time coach and we have the best polo facility in the country.’
Notwithstanding the fact that Manchester is also the British high performance centre for polo, under director Nick Hume, the specifics are even more impressive, as all the club’s ‘development time’ is given to them free by the council. Mike continues: ‘We have a 10-year contract with them. We train mainly in the diving pit and get the hire at a very much reduced rate. Two hours on Monday. Tuesday is development 4 till 10. On Wednesday it’s girls for one-and-a-half hours, on Thursday we have a two-hour session and on Friday we have access to the pool on contract from 8am-4pm!’
So, all in all, they get a lot of pool time. ‘Yes, but it’s not enough!’ continues Mike. ‘We need an extra training session for the youth team and we’re working on that at the moment. It’s expanding and we do have an overflow that goes to Miles Platting (25m, 2m deep pool), which is where we’re establishing a new club, Manchester Icebergs.’
The enthusiasm for the development of the sport is palpable. Jemma explains: ‘It started through Plant Hill High School, which has pupils who wanted to get involved with us here, but it’s three buses to get here from there whereas to Miles Platting it’s only one – so we thought that if we could get something going there, it would be better for them!’
It certainly would and this illustrates the far-reaching club spectrum. At one end, it is the pursuit of excellence with, for example, ASA championship victories or their senior women qualifying for Europe (they play in the preliminary round of the LEN Trophy next February) and, at the other end, it is about sport – or in this case, polo – for all … inclusivity, expanding the base of the sport. Manchester has been, and is again, held up as an example to other councils but whether others will follow is for the future.
For now, does Mike expect the club’s progress and success to carry on? There is another slight pause. Then with surety: ‘Yes, I’m sure Tim would and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t. We’ve got a good coaching staff, we know where our weaknesses are, we don’t get big-headed about it and we want to continue to do well – if only for the council. They’ve helped us with the contract here, provided us with a considerable amount of funding for development and for the club through their sports development schemes. They have played a major role and now polo in Manchester is a major sport, we can’t thank them enough.’
Courtsey of Swimming Times magazine
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