Liverpool Canoe Polo And Kayak Club-Friends Of Allonby

Liverpool's Kayak Club, with a high level of teaching and expertise, since 1981! Also an admired Canoe Polo club - regarded highly around the world!

www. friendsofallonby.org. uk

Our Website: https://friendsofallonby.org. uk /

Friends of Allonby is Liverpool's canoe club. We are an 'open' canoe club with interests in most aspects of recreational and competitive paddling. However, many of our members also have a keen interest in canoe polo and in 1998 our Governing Body, the British Canoe Union, awarded us "Top Performance Club" status for Canoe Polo, one of only two such awards ever to have been made. The BCU has now revised its "Top Club" award to align more closely with Sport England's "Clubmark" scheme, and Friends of Allonby is now an accredited TOP CLUB.
Since 1992 the Club has run its annual Merseyside Canoe Polo International initially in Dukes Dock then, at its own purpose built canoe polo and slalom facility in Queens Dock which is arguably the best permanent canoe polo venue in the UK. Recently we have moved to another facility in Collingwood Dock. This annual Tournament is one of the biggest held in the UK and consistently attracts dozens of polo teams from throughout the UK and Ireland, together with a sprinkling of teams from continental Europe.
In 2004 Friends of Allonby hosted the very successful 5th European Canoe Polo Club Championships, an elite competition run under the regulations of the European Canoe Association, to which only the top men's and women's teams in each European country are invited.
At the City of Liverpool's Sports Awards ceremony in 2006, Friends of Allonby received the coveted "Club of the Year" trophy in recognition of its major contribution to the sporting life of the city, and its regional, national and international reputation in canoe polo. Our senior Ladies Polo Team are the current European Club Champions, BCU Division 1 Champions and BCU National Champions, and four members of this team are also current World Champions having won gold medals with the Great Britain Ladies Team at the 2008 World Championships held in Edmonton, Canada.
A clear demonstration that our Club is not just interested in canoe polo occurred in 2008 when we organised two very competitive Kayak Sprint events for the World Firefighters Games, which were hosted by the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Services. This major event was the second biggest sporting competition held anywhere in the world during 2009, after the Beijing Olympic Games. In addition, some years ago the Club used to run a very popular annual Div. 3 Slalom on the River Tryweryn (near Bala), and more recently in successive years we organised three "Paddlefest Liverpool" all-day events for local children which provided lots of fun and opportunities to try out a wide variety of paddlesport activities.