The news this week that UK Sport has agreed to invest £375,000 into British Water Polo along with several other team sports (Handball, Softball & Volleyball) is a very welcome return and a much-needed kiss of life into these sports.

Since the giddy days of 2012, it’s been a pretty abject decline for the men and women senior water polo teams. Since 2012 the sport has been withering on the vine, and GB hasn’t fielded a senior team since 2014.

However, with this money comes a new ambition to resurrect the senior programme. Not least because; how do you attract young people into a sport when there’s no elite level? Water polo is a very technical sport. You have to start very early with skill acquisition (preferably from age 7 up), and because it’s so physical, your peak isn’t until your mid to late ’20s. So it’s often a 20+ year journey to reach the elite level.

Since 2005 I have been involved in coaching GB Junior teams. We’ve had some great results (most notably 8th at the World Championships & 6th and the European Champs). Whist I fully appreciate, these aren’t near the medals. These were considerable achievements for those players, for what is, in reality, a very uneven playing surface.

My unwavering advice to those young players I’ve coached along the way has always been to use water polo as a vehicle to travel and experience the World. If you want to continue your polo journey, don’t stay in the UK.

I’m proud to say probably my greatest achievement has been to convince players to leave these shores and go and create their own stories overseas. I’ve coached players who have gone on to attend University in Hawaii, San Jose, Indiana, Arizona, Michigan, New York and Berkeley. Similarly, players have gone to play in Australia, Hungary, Spain, New Zealand and France, plus many have been invited to play for clubs around Europe.

Like most things, your perspective is your reality. My reality has been that water polo has been the central thread of my life. Having left home at 18 with two bags and a backpack to head to UC Berkeley, I didn’t, in effect, life back home for 17 years. Most of that time was spent involved in playing or coaching elite level sport overseas.

That journey led me to some incredible highs – winning two NCAA championships, representing GB and Australia (as a player and coach for both countries) and attending four Olympic games.

But it came with some desperately sad lows, losing friends in a fraternity fire (detailed by Sports Illustrated) and the murder of a close friends sister.

There have been many, many stories along the way. I have been a ‘Best Man’ three times, once to a Brit marrying a Yank in California, once to a Yank marrying an Aussie in Sydney, and once to an Aussie marrying an Aussie in Cambridge. None of these would have happened without the thread of sport. I look at my Facebook “friends”, and ¾ of them are from people I’ve met overseas.

The purpose of writing this piece was to reflect on what a difference sport can make. Hopefully, the opportunity that this new funding gives is a chance for the next generation of young people to take up the sport, train seriously, represent their country, experience the highs and lows that it will inevitably bring, but above all: allow them to start writing their own great story.