Polo in the Park returns to Hurlingham Park in Fulham on 4, 5 and 6 June 2027, three days of international polo inside the city.
The Hurlingham Club was founded on 42 acres at Fulham in 1869, and it is the reason polo is played the way it is played anywhere. The club published the rules of the game in 1873, and most of the world still follows them; the first match on its ground was played on 6 June 1874. Polo in the Park is staged in Hurlingham Park, the public ground beside it, which puts a modern tournament on the piece of London where the sport was codified.
The format is not the game the clubs play. Three a side on a shortened pitch, city teams rather than patrons’ teams, short chukkas and a scoreboard a newcomer can follow, all of it designed so somebody who has never seen polo can watch a whole match and understand what happened. Purists object, which is more or less the point of it.
The 2027 tournament runs across three days from Friday 4 to Sunday 6 June in Hurlingham Park, Fulham. It is the only polo played inside London, so for most people it is the only chance to see the sport without a country drive and a club invitation. Bars, a food festival and a shopping village run alongside the matches, and the Hurlingham Club itself is next door but shut to everybody outside it.