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This crosses the paddling skills of canoeing with the ball handling skills of water polo and basketball. If you have a wicked streak in you, this could be the sport to bring it out, because the quickest way to clear your route to goal is to turn your opponent’s boat over! You have two giant nets hung on poles two metres above the water at each end of a pool or outside water course. There are two teams of five players racing up and down trying to score from their canoes. It’s a contact team game in which tactics and positional play are as important as the fitness and speed of the individual athletes, and it helps promote canoeing in a different environment.

Early records show a variety of canoe ball games being played in Great Britain in the late nineteenth century, but these were more novelty games played for fun. It wasn’t until the 1920s in France and Germany that canoe ball games were first used in earnest to build up river skills and to get more people into the boats.

At the time it was difficult to attract new paddlers and spectators and this provided an exciting introduction to canoeing. It was contained and safer, and so in 1926 the German Canoe Federation introduced ‘Kanupolo’ as a way to attract new members. It also helped build more camaraderie and swelled the coffers. They also published rules of play. The ball can be thrown by hand, or flicked with the paddle, to teammates and towards the goals. Pitches can be set up in swimming pools or any stretch of flat water. Boats are specifically designed for polo and at three metres are shorter than typical kayaks, which gives them greater manoeuvrability. It also made an early bath for me inevitable when I tried this in Putney. It pays to perfect your Eskimo roll.

‘It’s like five-a-side football, but the goals are six foot in the air, and you’re allowed to push people in,’ said one of the players competing in one of the 100 or so clubs in the UK. ‘I do it to completely de-stress from work. All the frustrations of the week get out of my system in just an hour and a half.’

Paddles are very light weight and designed with both pulling power and ball control in mind. Body protection, helmets and faceguards are all compulsory. World and European Championships are held every two years, and Great Britain is one of the world’s foremost nations, with the British women the current World Champions. Within the UK there is a National League structure for all ages, and during the summer months a number of canoe clubs host large outdoor tournaments which attract teams from all over the country and the world. Just a word of warning though: be careful how you celebrate scoring a goal, because once my arms were aloft and punching the air, I lost the only balance I had and was upside down in the pool again!

For more information go to www.canoepolo.org.uk