Brisbane,
The world’s most liveable city, built on the side of a hill with a muddy brown river running through the middle of it!

Home of ‘Steve-Irwin-Killing’ Sting-Rays, ‘Pokie’ machines and Australia’s most loveable polo community: Brisbane-Hardcourt-Bike-Polo (BHBP).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOwFTo4Q3I

BHBP proposes to host the largest ever Australasian Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships. The AHBPC13 will be held over four days, with no limit on registered teams (minimum of 32 teams), five demountable timber courts and floodlights for night play.

Our proposed dates for the AHBPC 2013 are from the 25/4/13 to the 28/4/13. This new date allows us to take full advantage of the Anzac day holiday, the cooler Brisbane climate and the fabulous Brisbane dry season. In form players will be better prepared for Worlds.

Brisbane is not known for its cool climate but with temperature average between 27.1 and 17.3 degrees polo is a dream to play throughout cooler months. The east coast of Australia is central to players from around Australia, New Zealand and Asia, allowing cheaper travel for players and allowing more players to attend.

The 25^th will be a working bee day where the players that are able to come early help complete the courts and other preparations, allowing for catch ups, beers and casual pickup when done. The 26^th will be a day of casual pickup, knife fights, foot downs and other games. There will be an alley cat to get to know the city, orientation of the local facilities and the ubiquitous pub-crawl. Followed be the main event on the 27-28th.

The courts for the AHBPC have moved from our home court at Musgrave Park in West End to a facility in Hamilton, the courts are located 8km from the CBD (approximately 27min polo commute or a five minute City Cat ride). We are hosting two tournaments in 2012 at this site.

The area is a large concrete slab roughly 200m x 800m, the facility comes with floodlights and power, and the proposed site is large enough to host five 20x40m courts with one court dedicated to pickup. The courts will be fabricated from wooden barriers that would be recycled for future events.

The layout includes an information tent that will provide a live score monitor (a plasma!), PA system, essentials (water, sun block, hugs) and lots of helpful information. The courts are next to a city cat terminal and close to public transport, shopping centres and hostels/hotels.

With the addition of a fourth court we estimate that we will be able to host a minimum of 32 teams. At this time we predict that registration fees will cost $25 per person, this sum may be less pending sponsors and fundraising.

The tournament will be insured, we already have cover and we already have the funding to cover this major cost. BHBP has been fundraising for the past couple of months, so we are already on our way to cover the foreseen major costs. We have already organised a few sponsorship deals and are

Additionally there will be shaded marquee areas with seating, bike racks, a mallet making workbench, sales booth for all teams/scenes to sell their merchandising, Gear stall, food/coffee will be available for purchase and an onsite mechanic. There will be an emergency nurse provided by cycling Queensland.

We are securing local government funding, as we did at AHBPC10, to help with the event.

To summarise:

The tournament will be held from the 25^th to the 28^th of April.

4 full size 20x40m courts including floodlights

1 dedicated pickup court

Bike racks

Shade, marquees and seating

Mallet fixing workbench

Food/coffee

Sales booth for all team merch

Gear stall

Mechanic

Medic

Information tent

Over 30 Brisbane players to help organise event

City Cat (public transport) terminal adjacent to courts

Insurance already organised

BHBP has an exciting tight knit community; we pride ourselves on playing fun, competitive polo; with a good slathering of dick jokes, heckling and laughter. BHBP was established 4 years ago and now have over 30 league players.

We have hosted many successful tournaments including AHBPC10, this year a BHBP team came 2^nd, the highest ranked result in any AHBPC for BNE. Our dedicated players have also attended every AHBPC since Melbourne 09, we have also sent two teams to worlds and our players have played at many other top-level tournaments.

With this wide-ranging tournament experience we aim to host the largest and most entertaining nationals yet. Our members know the difficulties that arise in arranging large-scale torments, and have the experience to achieve it and over come the hurdles that will arise. We all aim to improve upon our previous effort and know that our experiences in Perth and other AHPBC will inform us on what works best and what needs improving in the structure and organisation of this important tournament.

See you soon,

from BHBP

And yes, the Go-Betweens are from Brisbane: Youtube