War of words at Harry and Wills’s pukka polo ground

THe polo season hasn’t even begun and already the divots are flying at Ham Polo Club, London’s last remaining ground, where Princes William and Harry and elle ‘the Body’ Macpherson have all played chukkas.

The fencing outside its entrance is festooned with signs listing the names of the club’s hierarchy and juxtaposing them with disobliging epithets, including ‘disgusting’ and ‘toxic’.

One of the boards then poses the question: ‘Where is RBS Bank and Members’ Money?’

As if that were not inflammatory enough, a letter has been pinned up next to the signs in which its signatory, former club stalwart Sean McCormack, accuses the club’s panjandrums of ‘ frankly disgusting behaviour’.

McCormack bewails the replacement of the club’s longstanding catering firm, Hunt Kendall, and what he alleges is the way in which the club’s social members have been treated ‘with utter disdain’ so that they are ‘left without voting rights’. McCormack asks what has happened to a £150,000 loan from RBS for renovating the grounds, and warns that he will mount what he describes as ‘a peaceful protest every playing Sunday’.

Warming to his theme, he derides one of the club’s officers for making what he describes as a ‘misogynistic’ remark about wives of male polo players during the course of an interview. In the interview, the officer is quoted as remarking: ‘You’re not creating grass widows. You’re including them and they get fed very well.’

‘I am now 81 years old,’ McCormack rounds off, ‘and never thought I would see the day when this club was being run by a collection of such narcissistic, selfish and incompetent individuals’.

McCormack declines to elaborate on his letter. Tempers flared last year at the club over who was to blame for a massive operating loss of £330,000.

The club, which charges playing members £2,500 a year, retains an unquivering stiff upper lip and declines to comment.