The Netherlands, July 2009
Polocrosse Vereniging Nederland (PVN) / Dutch Polocrosse Association (DPCA)
It’s been two years since the latest update of the Dutch Polocrosse Association. Throughout these years a lot has happened. We, the board, thought it was time to replace the old information for new.
The membership has increased enormously. From only 15 members in 2007, to 45 members in 2009. This is caused by decreasing the contribution for the membership, and by Dutch polo players getting an interest in polocrosse. In the Netherlands, polocrosse is played in four different regions nowadays; South-West, Mid-Netherlands, North-East and in the North.
During our visit in Australia in 2007, we have spoken with many polocrosse players from all over the world. We went back to the Netherlands with many ideas to get more people interested in the sport in our country. Preceding the World Cup 2007, we spent a lot of time by giving demonstrations at any kind of horse events and by organizing national trainings. By then we only had one Dutch Tournament. By talking to all those experienced polocrosse players, we found out that many of them discovered polocrosse because a friend or family member took them to a game. Competition seemed to be very important to increase the level of playing. Back in the Netherlands we decided to organize tournaments at three locations. By doing this we could attract local players from these other regions and our clubs arose. We still have international tournaments on the calendar; every year we play tournaments in France, Germany and the European Challenge in the United Kingdom. Unlike the United Kingdom and Ireland, we don’t have a similar pony-club system in the Netherlands. That makes it very hard to reach young kids with talented ponies, because dressage and show jumping are far more popular among them. The riders have never heard of other horse sports and are simply not interested. They have in mind that polo-related sports, like polocrosse and horseball, is a cruel way to ride your horse. As soon as they play a little game with us, some do change their minds and see that their horses actually likes the game. We can’t reach everyone, but the few we do are normally very enthusiastic.
Since we have more competition going on in our games, the playing level is increasing little every year. Our new Irish coach, Desmond Phelan, is very keen to help us with the sport and promotion. We also have the Dutch boys from Zambia, who come over to study and play polocrosse and help improve our games. Our weakness will be our horses; owning a horse is difficult in the Netherlands, especially in the West, where the stables are way too expensive for most people. Also the lack of pastures over there causes problems. We have many warm blood horses because of the type of equestrian in our country. Getting good thoroughblood type of horses from the UK or Australia is for most of us prohibitive.
Every Dutch tournament is financial self-sufficient by finding local sponsors. We try to keep the tournament fees as low as possible, so more people can afford to participate. We still look out for a main sponsor and try to attract these big companies for sponsoring by appearing in horse magazines and newspapers. The association cannot afford to send a group of players overseas to train yet, but it can pay fixed charges and traveling expenses for the coach.
The targets the Dutch Polocrosse Association is trying to reach in the following years, will be to grow in all kind of ways. Of course we hope our playing level will increase more by playing tournaments, improving our horses and by international coaching. But as important as that is, we also find it very important to say that everyone is welcome to play, no matter who you are or what horse you have. That we do great things with our horses (we all love to play, the more experienced players as well as the beginning players) and that we all like to have a great weekend with a nice atmosphere. We get along very well with players from other countries, and we have a lot of fun. In our opinion, having a good time with friends, is just as important as increasing our level of play in the games.
