Robert Skene

Charles Robertson Skene, known as Robert or Bob and nicknamed Hurricane Bob, was an Australian polo player who held the maximum ten-goal handicap. Born on 26 May 1914 in Assam, India, to an Australian tea planter, he began playing in Australia with his father, was a two-goal player at eighteen and in 1937 helped the Ashton Brothers Australian team win the Champion Cup at the Hurlingham Club in London. After the Second World War, in which he was held prisoner at Changi for about three and a half years, he returned to polo, won the US Open three times and in 1954 became the first foreigner to play for an Argentine team in the Argentine Open. He later managed the Santa Barbara Polo Club, where he is credited with saving polo, and died on 24 August 1997.