Many of you know that last year for the Shoreditch Invitational Brooks gave a saddle to every player. It was great to see so many of these saddles on polo bikes at the ECMC’s last weekend. I guess Brooks can even withstand polo!

Well, Brooks have gone a step further this year. They have worked with the directors and designers of 5 of the major urban cycling events this year to make custom saddles in new colours in limited editions of 250 for each event.

I got to see the sample of the Euro’s saddles last week and it is gorgeous! Not only will we be giving away 3 of the saddles as prizes but they are saddles 1/250, 2/250 and 3/250, numbered and in limited edition (minimal) packaging giving credit to each of the designers.

Not only that but participants of the Euro’s will be able to buy our limited edition Swift saddles for less than a normal Swift. Brooks has really stepped up to back polo over the last two years and this is another step in the right direction.

Here are pix of the other saddles:

Tomorrow Arte will be showing London polo on their Tracks program at 11pm. While we have faith in Arte we don’t have much faith in our television personality skills. It must be said that we think it’s going to be quite a giggle. You may be able to  see Roxy and friends get their butts kicked in Oxford and Mike build a mallet with no bolt.  Yes, well, we can’t win them all.The good thing for us is that it’ll only be shown in Germany!

We’re sure it will be fun to watch so by all means, if you’re in Germany tomorrow night check us out at 11pm. Maybe you can even translate the German dubbing and let us know what we said.

If we’re not too embarrassed maybe we’ll post it here after airing so stay tuned.

The players at The Shoreditch Invitational 2008

With so many people traveling from all over we thought it best to let you know a rough schedule for the tournament. This will change in the lead up to the tournament but I don’t want people missing out on the awards (late Sunday night), or registration (mostly friday).

Like I said, this will change but just to give you an early indication of what we’re thinking, it looks a little something like this:
Friday July 31st, 2009

Time             What
3:30pm        Tour of London
6:30pm        Registration of teams begins
Meet your landlord    (meet who you’re staying with)
9:00pm        Off to the pub:Meet & Greet

Saturday August 1st, 2009

Time             What

7:00              Volunteers Arrive at court.
8:00am        Players Arrive at court.
Late registration begins.
8:30 am        Late Registration ends.
Welcome, t’s & c’s, ref intro, day brief.
9:00am         Play starts.
8:00pm         Play finishes.
Ride to party
8:45pm          Sun down

Sunday August 2nd, 2009

Time            What
7:30am        Volunteers arrive.
8:00am        Players Arrive.
Refs Arrive
8:30am        Day brief
9:00am        Play begins.
7:00pm        Play ends
Ride to party
8:45pm        Sun down
9:30pm       All at party   (after court tear down)
10:00pm    Awards Ceremony (at the party)

We have a possibility of play going on until 9pm, so please don’t plan on the 7pm deadline.

Monday August 3rd, 2009

Time          What
11:00am    Player Breakfast
12:30am    Pick up games

Last month we went to the bank to set up the bank account for our event.

The nice man who set up our account said, ‘how would you like to be greeted on your letters?’ and we said, ‘huh?’.

‘How would you like us to address you?’ he said.

And so, without missing a beat, we told him …

It seems though that Paypal and our bank are not a match made in heaven. It’s taken weeks to finally get the two to talk to each other, but now that we seem to have finally resolved their quarrel, we’d like to say sorry to anyone who had problems trying to get registered. If you’ve had trouble paying for your spot, you should also have received an email from us with an explanation of what to do to sort that. If not, drop us an email at info@ehbpc.org and we’ll find your details and let you know what you still need to do.

I am so excited to announce that Brooks Saddles has stepped up as a fantastic friend to bike polo.

Brooks will be sponsoring the North American Championships, the World’s and the Euro’s this year.

They have stepped up to make custom saddles featuring the logo of each event and they are also making a Barbican bag which will feature all 3 tournaments.

But they have gone even further! Brooks will be flying the winning team of the European’s (up to €2,500) to the World’s in Philadelphia!!!

If your team has already bought flights to the World’s we can refund the money (up to €2,500) if you win the Championships here.

The World Championship is also offering free entry into the tourney for the winners of the Euro’s. They have opened registration so make sure that you get registered. Again if you win the Euro’s they will refund your registration.

But oh no, that’s not all. Not being satisfied with awarding only the best polo team in Europe, Brooks would also like to award the team who made the tournament special just by showing up. Perhaps it was this team’s style, personality, grace, or sense of humour but Brooks will be awarding it with the Talent & Style Award at the European Championships. This team will also be flown by Brooks (up to €2,500) to the Worlds.

This award will be voted on by Brooks, myself, and the refs at the tournament, so make sure to treat our referees with respect.

So here is my big thank you to Brooks for stepping up and supporting our community by helping bring all of us together.