Caroline Giles plays polo in Iran 2006

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Caroline Giles plays polo in Iran 2006

When I told Jerry I was going to have to miss two weeks of lessons in the middle of the season he was not terribly pleased. When I explained it was because I had been invited to captain an English ladies team in Iran he looked at me in amazement. " Iran" he said that sounds different, can you write about it"

The first funny sight was the team gathered at the airport in long garments with head scarf's to hand for arrival in Tehran. The main point of conversation was the pros and cons of leaving our nail varnish on. In the end we decided on the side of caution, in case it was illegal in Iran, and took it off!

We were hosted by the Ilkhanzadeh family, who showed us the most wonderful hospitality. It is strange but polo players are like a huge family where ever they are in the world and Iran is no exception. There were three teams playing in the tournament Iran, Australia and England and the club provided in excess of 40 ponies for us to play!

As Persia was the birth place of polo we were invited to travel to Isfahan, a five hour trip in a coach, to see Naqshe Jahan Square where the marble goal post still stand from 16 AD. We did a lot of sight seeing but the sight of the English and Australian teams in there colourful scarf's and clothes caused more excitement among the Iranian tourists than the sights they had come to see!

We had all tried out our ponies prior to our sight seeing and had several practise chukkas against the other teams. We felt quite confidant at the start of the tournament as we had won the practise chukkas. What we had not allowed for was that the original chukkas had been played at 3 am on the Aussies time clock and by the time the tournament was played 4 days later they had recovered from their jet lag!

It was a amazing experience to play on the most wonderful of pitches and have the Koran sung as we lined up to start the matches on very warm summer evenings. When I say warm we were not helped by having to wear scarf's under our hats and shirts down to our knees!( see photos). As it was the first time ever there had been a ladies tournament in Iran there was a huge amount of media interest with Press Photographers and TV crews.

It was a amazing experience to play on the most wonderful of pitches and have the Koran sung as we lined up to start the matches on very warm summer evenings. When I say warm we were not helped by having to wear scarf's under our hats and shirts down to our knees!. As it was the first time ever there had been a ladies tournament in Iran there was a huge amount of media interest with Press Photographers and TV crews.

Having beaten the Iranian Team in our 1st match, the finals were between ourselves and Australia. This turned out to be a hard fought match with us winning 6 goals to 4 1/2.

I was presented with a fantastic silver replica of a 2000 year old cup made especially for the Tournament. The cup was presented by the British Ambassador.

Polo yet again came up trumps and enabled me to experience some thing I will cherish forever.