As swimming became a popular recreation in England during the 1860s and 1870s, several water sports developed, roughly patterned after land sports. Among them were water football (or soccer), water rugby, water handball, and water polo, in which players rode on floating barrels, painted to look like horses, and struck the ball with a stick. (this is probably where the name Polo came from)

Water rugby became the most popular of these sports, but somehow the water polo name became attached to it, and it's been attached ever since.

Water polo is now an established sport played throughout the world but it has a long history which began in England. The first documented evidence of the game was when the Bournemouth Premier Rowing Club carried out the "first series" of aquatic handball matches" on 13 July 1876.

Evidence suggests that the game was played in the 1870's in Leeds with a rugby ball and in Burton-on-Trent where a goal was scored by grounding the ball on the end of the bath, with the goalkeeper standing on the end and allowed to jump onto any player in possession of the soft india rubber ball.

In 1877, the sport was tamed in Scotland by the addition of goalposts. The Scots also replaced the original small, hard rubber ball with a soccer ball and adopted rules that prohibited taking the ball under the surface or "tackling" a player unless he had the ball.

By 1884 the Midland Counties ASA had sufficient clubs playing to institute its own Championship, won by Birmingham and Leander, and the Swimming Association of Great Britain was asked to recognise the game. The Council declined and the Midlanders started the Aquatic Football Association. This stirred the ASA into action and in 1885 the governing body passed an official set of rules.

At the Annual General Meeting of the ASA in 1888 a committee was appointed to revise the rules and formulate a set of championship conditions. The report which was adopted contained two special points: 1. The goals should be 8 feet wide fixed at least one foot from the end of the bath and a cross bar 6 feet high. 2. A player must be actually swimming when passing or playing the ball.

As played in England, the object of the game was for a player to touch the ball, with both hands, at the goal end of the pool. The goaltender stood on the pool deck, ready to dive on any opponent who was about to score.

Water polo quickly became a very rough sport, filled with underwater fights away from the ball, and it wasn't unusual for players to pass out for lack of air.

The first international match was against Scotland in 1890 and was won by Scotland although it was played under the English rules. The following year the match was played in Scotland and again the Scots won. The English officials found there were many points in the Scottish laws which could be adopted. With a view to unifying the laws an International Board was set up. In Liverpool in 1892 this body passed a revised set of rules which was binding on both countries.

The Scottish game, which emphasized swimming speed, passing, and team work, spread to England during the early 1880s, to Hungary in 1889, to Austria and Germany in 1894, to France in 1895, and to Belgium in 1900.

Water polo was the first team sport added to the Olympic program, in 1900.

With all this pioneering work it is not surprising that Britain dominated the early Olympic Games, winning golds in the 1900, 1908, 1912 and 1920 Games. Today England does well to compete against teams from Europe and around the world, the vast majority of whom are profession players and enjoy televised coverage and large crowds of spectators.

WOMEN'S WATER POLO

Women played water polo early in the century, but during the 1920s most physical educators decided that the sport was too rough for women and it was dropped by swimming clubs and colleges.

It was revived in the late 1950s by Rose Mary Dawson, the women's coach at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Swim Club, and the AAU began conducting a women's championship in 1961. Ann Arbor won the first three national titles, led by goalie Micki King, who later became an Olympic gold medalist in diving.

Women's water polo, which is not essentially different from the male form of the sport, quickly spread to California and Florida, which have produced most of the top teams since the early 1970s.

A women's championship has been conducted by the Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA) as part of the World Aquatic Games since 1986.