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Polo
stars ‘rumble in Kaduna’
pius
anakali
Senior
Correspondent
Kaduna is gradually establishing
itself as the hub of polo players. While the second in the series of the annual
Vmobile best of African Polo is taking place at the serene resort of Fifth
Chukker Resort along Jos road, Kaduna Polo Club is also preparing for what has
its own annual ritual, the Kaduna International Polo Tournament.
The event, which has the Dickenson Cup as one of the most
prized trophy in the weeklong tournament, is already preparing for the big
championship.
Tagged “Rumble in
Kaduna”, this year’s edition, the sponsor of the championship
informed Saturday Independent, would the best organised in the annals of polo sponsorship
in the country.
Already, teams from Kaduna, Kano,
Ibadan, Port Harcourt and other polo-playing clubs have shown interest in this
year’s celebration. Though no official number of would-be-participants
was made known, it was gathered that rave of the moment, Kaduna Fifth, El-Amin,
Victorious Kano, and others from Lagos and Port-Harcourt would compete in the
high goal event.
To add vent to this year’s
edition, Malta Guinness, the sponsor of the Dickenson Cup has offered to
provide electronic scoreboard.
Reputed as the biggest and the oldest polo tournament on the
annual calendar of the Nigerian Polo Association (NPA), the tournament attracts
all the game’s big names and their counterparts from abroad in a weeklong
campaign for honours that is difficult to rival in this part of the globe. The annual polo festival that
traditionally holds every October would hold from December 4-11, 2004. Already,
a committee has been in touch with traditional sponsors and other stakeholders
of the event with a view to making this year’s tournament the most
exciting in years to come, both on and off the pitch. Expectedly, the top teams including the defending champions,
Kaduna EL-Amin, are intensifying preparations at their respective hideouts
ahead of the prestigious fiesta.
Some of the major sponsors of the Kaduna event include, First Fuels
which has remained the main sponsor in the past seven years, MTN Nigeria
Communication whose sponsorship has raised the corporate profile of the fiesta
and Guinness Nigeria Plc, the proud sponsors of the Dickenson Cup.
Apart from the Georgian Cup, which
is the most respected polo prize in the whole of Africa, other prizes to be won
in Kaduna this year include, the Dicekenson Cup, Intercity Bank Cup, Gen. Musa
Yar’Adua Cup, Kangiwa Cup, Argentine Ambassador’s Cup, Dangote Cup,
Gloucester Cup and Sardauna Cup among others.
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