City of Bristol Water Polo

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Caledonia and City of Bristol earn U19 Championship titles - Swim England Water Polo Hub Caledonia were crowned U19 Open national champions after a remarkable 12-9 victory over North London, capping off an impressive run with another great performance in the gold medal match at the Swim England Water Polo National Age Group Championships. North London made the brighter start, edging the...

Swim England Water Polo U19 National Champions 💙🎉 Crushed it.

City of Bristol are the final champions of the weekend 🏆🔥

A 13–10 victory over West London Penguin saw them successfully defend their title and go back-to-back in the U19 Female competition 💪

Congratulations to a fantastic team effort 👏

City of Liverpool claimed bronze after a hard-fought win over Cheltenham 🥉

📖 Read the full U19 (Open and Female) recap here: bit.ly/Water-Polo-NAGs-U19-results

Finals weekend is here 🎉
Our NAGs team heads north to Gloucester, led by captains Hattie and India, ready to take on Cheltenham. A win secures our reigning champs a spot in Sunday’s final against either Liverpool or Penguin. Let’s get it, girls 💪🏻🔥

Hattie, Georgia and India have been selected for the GB U20s long squad for the upcoming European Championships in Portugal this August—congratulations to all three on a fantastic achievement! With coach Nick leading the team, what great City of Bristol representation.

The girls are heading up North for the final U19 National Age Group qualifier. As reigning champions, they need three more wins to book their place in May’s finals and chase back-to-back titles 🏆. They’ve been battling hard against the seniors in training — we’ve got every faith, let’s go Bristol💪🔥💙

The ladies have triumphantly secured promotion to the British Water Polo League after 3 victories in the play offs against Liverpool, Coventry and Strathclyde. Three strong wins mean they share promotion winning celebrations with the men in an all round successful season for the two CoB senior teams. The junior girls compete in NAGs next weekend so we’re sending all the winning energy before rolling onto the end of season social. Let’s go Bristol 💙 🥳 🎉

Is it sunny where you are!? It’s certainly shining on Manon and Eliza during their week-long training camp in Athens. They’re training every morning and then playing games against local Greek teams in the evenings—loving every second.

The fun doesn’t stop there, though! The pair head straight from Heathrow to Habs this weekend for the Ladies’ play-off matches. We can’t wait for them to bring the sunny energy 😎 🔥

A final round of Conference League for the ladies this weekend, the team need to beat unbeaten Liverpool and Rotherham to finish undefeated and have equal bragging rights as the men!
Having already secured a place in the play-offs, the ladies look to close out the league with two wins and take serious momentum into April’s promotion deciding round robin 🚨

After the successful prelim weekend, the U17 female National Age Groups are back in action, the team heads up to the Midlands for the qualifying round playing Beckenham, Penguin and Manchester. Let’s keep the wins coming in 💪🏻💯

The Dub Collectors

When Henry VI founded Eton College in 1440, it would have blown his mind to know that nearly 600 years later it would host British Water Polo League Champ 2's only undefeated team for a three game weekender. I don't know how au fait the House of Lancaster were with the rules of water polo, but I reckon they'd have appreciated Sissons' positively medieval tactics.

The men's 1s arrived at the college with a simple equation in front of them. 3 dubs from their 3 games should all but ensure promotion back to BWPL Champ 1 and set the team up well for a shot at the title in the final weekend of fixtures. First on the menu, Kent's finest - Invicta.

Because of a previous misdemeanour, coach Sissons was serving a touchline ban and could only watch from the stands. I don’t know whether his glare of disapproval is better felt through the back of your head or the top. At least there’s no chirping on the bench.

We started the game with characteristic confidence and quickly assumed a 2-0 lead through the good work of messrs Thompson and Brown. Once captain/coach Smith jumped out for a breather, defensive fortitude lapsed and we slipped to a 3-2 deficit.

This team, this season, do not quit and quickly reared back in the second quarter to level the game at 4-4. This was helped in part by some gamesmanship from
Thompson, and Browner finding his shooting boots. The Jubble/Rosenberger tandem at CF was also ploughing a very fertile field of major fouls.

In the third quarter, the game remained nip and tuck. Both teams traded majors and goals and soon we found ourselves with both Browner and Thompson in foul trouble. See out the rest of the quarter and regroup in the huddle? No, Will fancied giving away his third major with a second to play in the quarter. That’s the sort of game IQ that an experienced semi-pro brings to the team these days.

Scores level and one quarter to play, the captain rallied his troops. Time to empty the tank.

Water polo is a sport for all shapes and sizes, but sometimes it’s as simple as putting your longest men into dangerous positions and giving them the freedom to express themselves. That certainly seemed to be the case for us as Jubble and Rosenberger started finding the target. We quickly assumed a 9-6 lead, albeit at the cost of Browner’s third major, before calling a tactical/restful timeout. The message was simple: what we have, we hold.

4 nervy minutes later, we emerged 9-7 winners. We enjoyed a triumphant huddle on poolside and savoured our final few Sissons-less moments, reiterating the need to maximise rest and recovery in the proceeding few hours.

With the Six Nations going poorly from an English perspective, some members of the team flexed their mental muscles with a mini chess tournament. It was interesting to see the crossover between each player’s chess styles and their water polo characteristics: Williams - ponderous in attack and cautious in defence; Rosenberger - the risk taking maverick; Davis - the analyser; Smith - heart over head; Halstead - excellent basic skills but always got a blunder in him. Needless to say, there was some derision from the other teams in the facility and from some of our teammates. It’s ok, we’ll play checkers next time so it’s more their speed.

With nearly 4 hours killed, we began limbering up for the day’s second challenge - the boys from Southampton. After John (no longer banned from poolside) gave his team talk, Jubble led a land warm up to a chorus of grumbles and creaking joints. Thankfully for us, our opposition had also played a few hours earlier and were employing a far more static land warm up.

Despite the superior warm up, we slipped to a 3-0 deficit off the bat, before showing our spirit to rescue it to 3-3 by the end of the first quarter. Browner and Rosenberger came up with the goals whilst, miraculously, no one gave any major fouls away.

With the game still tit for tat in the second quarter, we unleashed a game-breaker from the bench. Famous for his large chest, good social value and single swimming speed, it was a shock to all when Alex Mosey launched a rocket from deep to give us a two goal advantage. Goals continued to flow for the rest of the team but a leaky defence kept Southampton in the game. At half time, the we led by 8 goals to 6.

Thanks to tireless work from our centre forwards and driving players, Southampton were beginning to find themselves in foul trouble and had to mix up defensive match ups. Bit by bit, we edged away from them - goals from Thompson, Slez and Rosenberger took us to the end of the third quarter 12-9 ahead.

Into the 4th and there were more goals to be had. Browner and Thompson combined again before Browner was out for his customary third major. We are blessed with serious strength in depth, and there’s no better example of this than Scott Sullivan. After opting out of phase 1 in favour of an intensive training camp/bulking mission in the States, he was back and better than ever for Champ 2. Into the pitch he swam and, shortly after, out of the pitch he swam for giving away a major foul. The British refereeing establishment are yet to catch up to the nuance and tactical subtlety of a player of his quality - maybe when we’re in Div 2 next year?

With the score now 17-10 to us and very little time on the clock, captain Smith conceded a tactically necessary major before Southampton hit a quick fire double to ice the game at 17-12.

Pretty? Not always. Effective? Mostly. Dub? Creamy. All in all, a good day’s work.

Into the evening and after last year’s experience of a night out in Slough, we opted to move our festivities this year to Windsor. Before that though, we got to experience a Fawlty Towers-esque hotel check in and accidentally gatecrash a 103rd birthday party in the adjoining curry house. Peak Slough.

In Windsor, we celebrated passing the day’s physical tests with a quiz to test our minds. This was in part to celebrate the royal history of our surroundings, but also to show that we’re a team who can do high-brow, sensible evenings out when we choose to. Many strings to our bow and all that.

In Carmarthenshire, when you get an answer wrong, you earn the right to assault the quiz master. That’s what we could surmise from Steffan William’s behaviour, at least. This, coupled with some impressively low scores, left some of us wishing for a return to 70s style state education and most pining for the simplicity of a quiz-free night out. Bolton soon come.

The next morning, we shivered through a lie-in in our freezing hotel rooms before returning to Windsor for some breakfast and a rainy walk around. In keeping with the traditional English theme of the place, we settled into Spoons for a nutritious breakfast.

With no disrespect to Tim Martin, it was clear we were still hungry and ready to feast on Croydon’s defence. We started the game powerfully and quickly assumed a 4-1 lead. Browner, Jubble and Thompson came up with the goals - all homegrown seeds now flowering on the biggest stage.

By the second quarter, it was clear Croydon had started to learn from us and impose themselves on the game with a few tidy goals. Unfortunately, they’d been inspired by some other areas of our game too, and quickly saw a player sent to the stands for losing his head. Sissons looked baffled on the bench - the seat he’d been keeping vacant for after his red card was now taken. Alas, he’d have to behave himself. Half time 6-4.

A no nonsense half time chat meant we started the third quarter with increased intensity and produced a clinical 5-0 display to take the score to 11-4. Goals from Rosenberger, Browner and the Slezhammer did the damage. It seemed Will Thompson couldn’t snap out of his pre-match cricketing mindset, maintaining his laser focus on that 4th stump channel (just wide of the post). There’s no edges in this game, Will!

With the scoreline emphatic, the 4th quarter gave an opportunity for some of the team’s unsung heroes to get on the scoresheet. Smith first, with a clinical and convincing goal from out wide, followed by Graham from downtown. By this time, Sissons’ naughty chair in the stands was holding the weight of another Croydon player who’d also succumbed to his infectious headloss disease. John took his revenge however with a superb timeout call 2 seconds from time with us holding a 9 goal lead. You never can be too careful, although this will almost certainly feature in a ‘Sports Top Ten Disrespect Moments’ montage in years to come. In his defence, it’s a dog eat dog world.

Graham bottled the chance to bag one at the death and we had to settle for a 15-6 win. A resounding victory and a third delicious W for us to add to our collection.

We turn our attention now to the bright lights of the Jason Kenny leisure centre on finals weekend, with promotion and title glory in our hands. Can we seize the moment and etch our names in the annuls of lower league water polo history? Or will the taste of creamy dubs become too sickly for this team to handle? Stay tuned to find out…

The women remain undefeated with 3 comfortable wins in Habs this weekend!! One more weekend to go 🤞🏻