When King Charles III was still a young prince visiting Malta, he took a break from royal duties to play polo and the Maltese players were keen to show they “weren’t chickens”.

The matches are today fond memories of the last few surviving Maltese polo players and their relatives.

It was July 6, 1968, and Prince Charles played in a tournament in his honour to celebrate the Malta Polo Club’s centenary.

According to the official programmes printed for the event, the prince played on the San Anton team wearing white alongside Sam Borg, Anthony Cassar (known as Captain Cassar) and Salvu Darmanin, a celebrated player who still holds the national record for the highest goal handicap.

Mark Darmanin, Salvu’s son, recalls his late father saying that the matches took place on the middle ground of the Marsa arena, which is today encased by the Marsa horse racing track. 

The would-be king rode horses, known in the polo community as ponies, from the Darmanin stables along with others from the Combined Services Saddle Club.

“The prince enjoyed playing on my father’s team,” Darmanin said, adding “they played with the same style, my father having also been mentored in the game by Lord Louis Mountbatten”.

Two days later, the prince played a second match, this time on the President’s Team for the Prince Louis Cup.

Wearing red and white squares, the prince rode alongside Major R.J. Baddeley and Vincent and Albert Galea against the Maltese Kittens.

This time, the prince came up against Salvu Darmanin, the idea being to give the prince a taste of tougher competition. 

Also among the Maltese Kittens was Anthony (Barty) Zammit Tabona.

Explaining what it was like to play against the prince, Zammit Tabona said: “It was fair game, I don’t think we would have hit him as hard as we would normally, but certainly we would not want him to go away with the impression that we were chickens.”

Zammit Tabona added: “ We played a good game, there were strong teams, it was a question of enjoying it”.

Spectators also delighted in watching the tournament.

Janice Frapwell Baker, who was 13 years old at the time, was watching with her parents who took some photographs of the occasion.

She was a young member of the Combined Services Saddle Club and helped by riding ponies to and from the polo grounds.

“It was amazing how close we could get to Prince Charles,” she recalled.

“He seemed so young and surrounded by older men”.

This was not Charles’s only occasion to play at the Malta Polo Club as one year later, he returned on a private visit together with his sister, Princess Anne.

I don’t think we would have hit him as hard as we would normally do

The young Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal were fond of polo and once again Charles found time to play on July 12, 1969.

A match for the Keyes’ Challenge Cup in honour of the prince’s visit was played, with Prince Charles playing in the President’s Team, wearing red/white together with T.H. Bannister, Vincent Galea and Salvu Darmanin.

The Keyes’ Challenge Cup was presented to Prince Charles whose team won the match against Maltese Kittens.

It turns out that the royal connection to the Marsa ground dates back even further. 

Prince Charles and Princess Anne had first visited the Marsa fields and the Malta Polo Club together in 1954 when accompanied by their mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

On May 5, 1954, the prince and princess, accompanied by the queen and Lord Mountbatten, watched their father, the Duke of Edinburgh, play polo there, too.

Some Maltese were even tutored on polo by Lord Mountbatten, who at a point was even president of the Malta Polo Club.