Hockey on horseback

ntil the mid-20th century, the vista from my office window at the British Embassy in Cairo extended uninterrupted to the pyramids of Giza. These wonders of antiquity are no longer visible, but my view across the Nile survives, looking across to the Gezira Sporting Club on the island of Zamalek, founded in 1882 as the Khedivial Sporting Club for British cavalry officers in need of a place to play polo. This reminder, and a love of the game that I developed early in my regimental life, gave me the impetus to invite a British Army polo team to Egypt last November, after an almost unbroken 70-year hiatus. At stake for the five-goal Army team as they took on our generous Cairene hosts, the Kings Club, was the newly created Brigadier ‘Roscoe’ Harvey trophy, named in honour of one of the most accomplished cavalrymen and polo players to have been stationed in Egypt. Charles Barnet ‘Roscoe’ Harvey was born in Sarawak on 19 July 1900 and commissioned into the 10th Hussars in 1920. In India