Jogi Hagemann
Jogi (Joachim) had his first real encounter with Poly in 1981 when, following a chance meeting with John Littleton at Münster University, where John was giving a guest lecture and Jogi was studying, he invited Poly to his local tournament in Gronau, the town in which Jogi was born and lived most of his life. In fact, this was not our first encounter with Gronau, as the Poly Magazine records a match against them in June 1978 in Den Haag.
The hospitality afforded to us by Jogi and his team-mates led to the start of a wonderful relationship between the two teams which grew through many memorable invitational tournaments, mostly in Gronau but occasionally in London and elsewhere. A mutual bond grew between a group of Poly players and the Gronau Team as well as with Jogi’s real family (wife Anette, and children Christof, Marcus and Moni). Over the years the tradition continued with some additions and omissions to the group as time went by. Most recently the teams got together again in 2023, when Gronau hosted a touching memorial tournament for Jogi, also involving the usual German and Dutch teams as well as our other old friends, the Spanish Masters from Real Canoe Madrid.
In 1985 Jogi cemented his part in the Poly fraternity when he had a longer stay in London on business. He trained with the Poly boys and played alongside many ex-first team players for Purples, which at that time was making its way into the “premiership”. The sporting and social bond became more and more personal, and Anglo-German relations were cemented by Jogi’s contribution for both clubs. The shared philosophy of “train-hard, play-hard” helped, but Jogi was at the centre of it all.
As the team of the era grew older, the tournament and the relationship seemed to strengthen and a feeling of home-from-home in Gronau grew. The Poly boys will remember the experiences through mixed successes in the water, a terrible amount of socialising including some great barbecues and highly memorable Jogi hospitality. In some cases we bordered on the limits of what could be done and consumed in a few short days….many matches, lamb at 2 am, bicycles (often ridden in the dark, usually on the road rather than in trees), short nights, flags, trophies, currywürst, ….
After the turn of the century, the tournaments continued in Gronau with the same verve, and, sometimes under different club names, joint participation with Poly players continued. At the FINA World Masters Championships Jogi picked up Gold in Perth (2008) and Silver in Budapest (2017). At the World Masters Games in New Zealand, playing in the Europa 55+ team, he also collected gold but that was by default as there were no other teams in that age group - although it was a fabulous social occasion involving many old faces from Germany, Spain and the UK as well as the ex-Poly New Zealanders. At the European Masters waterpolo he got a bronze in Slovenia (2018) and he also joined many old Poly members for the “Barbarians” trip to the South African Masters in 2019. There were far too many good times to recount and Jogi will live in our memories not nearly so much for the successes, but more for his love of life, his depth of character, his ability to light up a room, and his constant ambition to create good spirits.
Sadly, after a heroic battle with cancer, Jogi passed away in May 2021, aged 64. He will be sorely missed by those in the Poly and German waterpolo fraternities.
S McCartney