Slovenia was the first European country after the "big three" - Great Britain, Netherlands and France - to take up underwater hockey, and although other clubs in Slovenia have come and gone, the two original clubs, Kranj and Ljubljana, have endured.

The Kranj tournament takes place every February, and although we have not yet put in a Swiss team for this tournament, we did put in a team for Ljubljana 2010. That team came second in the second division, which made it the most successful "Swiss" team to date, until it was overtaken by the Madrid team in May 2011, which came first in the second division of that tournament.

However, for the 2011 tournament we were only three - Martin, Favio and Julie - so we needed to find another team to join, and the club from Trieste in Italy seemed to be the one most in need.

With Spanish, French, Italian and English languages involved, our communication within the team consisted mostly of smiles and hand signals. However, it seemed to work effectively enough that we managed to find each other in the water and actually win one of our games! The Trieste founder and coach, Francesca, had a huge smile on her face all through the after-tournament party, because for the first time ever since she started the Trieste club, they had gone to a tournament and not come last!

Julie and Favio (Geneva)

Mixed team of Zürich (Martin), Geneva (Favio and Julie) and Trieste

Martin Reed