The list of competitive sports for which I have no talent is long, but there are more I've never attempted. Looking over the list, I can dismiss certain sports outright, thanks to a thorough understanding of my limitations: Australian-rules football, the shot put, speed skating, free diving ... I'll just keep ticking them off until ... let's see ... ah, here we are: Eton Fives.

It's hardly surprising I never learned this rather specific form of handball, played between two buttresses against the wall of Eton College Chapel, or on a court which recreates that space's eccentric dimensions, most of them in the grounds of other boarding schools. There are only four public courts in the country, under the Westway in London, but they are, as it happens, a short walk from my house.

I go along to open night with my friend Sam, who has actually played Fives here before, and my 11-year-old son Barnaby, who has come to watch but is soon drafted in to make up a foursome with an instructor. The four concrete courts, each with the trademark left-hand protrusion (representing a bit of the chapel's stone handrail) stand side by side, looking like a Rachel Whiteread sculpture. We glove up and try a bit of gentle hitting. Several times the ball seems to pass right through my hand.

As we familiarise ourselves with the two-tiered court and the weird rules, our instructor keeps calling out "Lucky!", which I soon realise is an abbreviated form of "Unlucky!", and is largely directed at me, his team-mate. Sam and Barnaby, meanwhile, have frequent cause to exchange high fives.

Practising the bizarre rituals of serving and "cutting" (a return aimed at driving the ball into the server's crutch), I encounter problems I recognise from tennis. I never know where I'm supposed to stand, or when it's my turn to serve or cut. I can't even see the little grey ball unless it's standing still.

I guess you're never too old to find something else you stink at. Now my back aches, my hands hurt and my son keeps bugging me to come and play Fives with him. What have I done?

Created: 22nd January 2008 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk

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