Scott Carpenter 27 of Sedgefield Water Polo Club based at Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centre, who started playing the game at 5 years old, has achieved much in his Water Polo career, totally transcending the amateur game in this country.
For the past 4 years he has been a professional player in Australia with the Victoria Tigers in Melbourne and has rave reviews for his play despite being injury hit over the last two years. He led the Tigers to the National League double in 2013 and became the first foreign player to do this as captain.
He was targetted by Australian water polo to be fast tracked through the citizenship process in just two years instead of the usual 4/5 years, so hopefully if injuries allow he is now available to play in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Scott was picked to play against Japan in a 3 test series in November for Australia in Sydney but was forced to withdraw due to illness.
Fortunately still not fit he was picked to play against Olympic silver medallists Italy in December when he made a very encouraging debut for Australia with a 10-9 win and Scott managed 2 goals.
Scott still holds all the goal-scoring records in GB for Junior and Senior polo and played over 100 times for GB. Famously despite the coaches and players desperate for him to play in the Olympics in London in 2012 for GB he was ruled out because he had based himself in Australia instead of Europe by UK Sport. Scott was also a professional player in Barcelona for a year and has turned down offers from all of Europe’s top leagues because of the lucrative offer from Australia.
