PROFILE


HRH Prince Charles checks 'Uncle Dickie's' badge at Guards Polo Club


HRH Prince Philip, captain of the victorious Welsh Guards team, receives the Combermere Cup from Countess Mountbatten, after the final at Smith's Law


“MOST ACCIDENTS TO PONIES,


LAMENESS ETC, OCCUR IN THE LAST HALF MINUTE OF PLAY WHEN THEY ARE GETTING TIRED. I PROPOSE REDUCING THE LENGTH OF BRITISH CHUKKAS FROM EIGHT MINUTES TO THE AMERICAN PERIOD OF SEVEN AND A HALF"


LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN


“Marco”, is that these two bodies must swivel flexibly and independently of each other at the waist, never moving in any way to distract the other – or, more importantly, the pony. As he puts it in his opening sentence: "Before you start to play polo, make sure you are able to concentrate on your hitting without having to be busy riding." By 1935, though only 35 himself that


PORTRAIT OF THE MAN


ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, "Dickie" Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was born Prince Louis of Battenberg on 25 June 1900. At his birth Queen Victoria, his great-grandmother, suggested “Nicky” as his nickname, but that created confusion with the many “Nickys” in the Russian Imperial Family, so "Nicky" Battenberg became “Dickie”. In 1917 those Battenbergs who were living


in England changed their family name to “Mountbatten” as part of the process by which


summer, Mountbatten was regarded as one of the elder statesmen of British polo, greatly in demand as an umpire and sitting on some of the most prestigious committees of the game’s governing body, the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA). He was Chairman of the Hurlingham Rules Committee and as such he was the logical person to handle a request from members of the United States Polo Association


the British Royal Family de-Germanised their dynastic title from Saxe Coburg Gotha to “Windsor”. Through his sister, Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark, Dickie Mountbatten was the uncle of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and was also distantly related to the Queen (second cousin once removed). At the outbreak of World


War II Mountbatten commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla as captain of HMS Kelly, which, after seeing action in the Battle of Norway and the Mediterranean, was sunk by German dive bombers in 1941 off Crete. As Chief of Combined Operations, Mountbatten then


in 1938 that, given the increasing speed and frequency of international travel, “an attempt should be made to get the rules into line as far as possible in the various countries in which polo is played” – particularly with regard to Argentina, India, the UK and the USA. In 1938, Mountbatten was based at The


Admiralty in London and he responded with his usual enthusiasm, recruiting the HPA’s


planned such wartime successes as PLUTO, an underwater oil pipeline from the English coast to Normandy and one notable failure – the disastrous 1942 Raid on Dieppe with casualties of more than 60%, mainly Canadians. Mountbatten finished the war as Supreme Allied Commander


of Allied Forces in South East Asia (SEAC), where he worked with General William Slim to


reconquer Burma – hence the title of his victory earldom – and took the Japanese surrender at Singapore


in September 1945. After the war, Mountbatten


oversaw the controversial partition of India and Pakistan as the last Viceroy of India in


18


GUARDS POLO CLUB OFFICIAL YEARBOOK 2019


© Mike Roberts


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190  |  Page 191  |  Page 192  |  Page 193  |  Page 194  |  Page 195  |  Page 196  |  Page 197  |  Page 198  |  Page 199  |  Page 200  |  Page 201  |  Page 202  |  Page 203  |  Page 204  |  Page 205  |  Page 206  |  Page 207  |  Page 208  |  Page 209  |  Page 210  |  Page 211  |  Page 212  |  Page 213  |  Page 214  |  Page 215  |  Page 216