Twelve members of the U13 Olavian Fives team were led by three staff (Pete Cohen, Dom Redmond & Ryan Perrie) to Zuoz for a fabulous summer holiday of sport. Any grumblings about the 5am start at Luton were soon dismissed by the bright Alpine sunshine, and the train ride through the mountains was a great way to start the week. The first two days saw the running of the inaugural “Olavian International Internal League” © , which pitted players against each other in a random draw. Brian Wang, Harry Ravi, Roy Edward and Tony Barker made the final, with Harry and Tony prevailing with some pinpoint volleying.

On Wednesday the group took the train to St. Moritz and journeyed up the mountains by cable car for lunch and a great photo opportunity. A crazy-golf tournament back down in the town followed, with Ryan Perrie taking the honours, before the braver members of the group took a heart-stopping swim in the glacial lake! That evening saw St. Olave’s take on Zuoz school in a football match. The Zuoz boys were much older, stronger and faster, but great credit must go to Kaushik Ramesh for turning in a man-of-the-match performance in defence after a woeful ten minutes in goal, and the team as a whole for giving 100% the whole game. Pete Cohen took up position between the posts, and managed to keep the damage down to an estimated 10 goals to 1, with Ryan Perrie the scorer at the other end.

Revenge came easily though, in the form of a Fives match against Zuoz School which St. Olave’s won 2 pairs to 1. Tony and Brian won at first, their experienced positioning overcoming their more powerful opponents, and Kaushik and Harry won at 3rd in a tightly fought game after a wobbly start. Harry continued his wobbly start theme the next afternoon when the group cycled up the valley to the next village, spending more time in the surrounding fields than on the path, but eventually got the hang of it and made it back to base in one piece. Branan Sivanantha came closest to disaster in forgetting that the Swiss have their brakes the wrong way round, slamming on his front brake and going over the handlebars spectacularly, but came away with nothing worse than a sheepish grin!

Thursday night was manhunt night, after dark everyone went out into the valley and up to the waterfall for some moonlit hide & seek. Kiran Preddy & Ed Wallis remained undetected in long grass, while Alex Openshaw swears he shared his boulder with a snake and still managed to keep quiet! The discovery of a very long plastic slide built on the mountainside provided entertainment until well past midnight, with a competition to see who could propel themselves furthest off the end! Tactics included emptying a bottle of water on the slide before going down, and soaking the grass at the end, but the acrobatics of Ryan Wilkinson, skidding along on his rear with all four limbs in the air can only be put down to sheer talent.

The team also managed to fit in an afternoon on the Zuoz clay tennis courts, a session on the volleyball court, climbing a mountain, and the Lindt Challenge, similar to the OIIL © but with twelve bars of Swiss Chocolate for the winners! Callum Little, Kaushik and Ryan were tied in fourth place, and a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors put Callum through to the final on his birthday, to join Tony, Ed and also Tom Watson who had a superb tournament. It was Tony and Ed who took the honours – and the chocolate! Finally awards were handed out for most improved player (Alex Openshaw & Ryan Wilkinson), biggest achievement (Harry Ravi for cycling) and muppet of the week (Tom Watson for falling out of his top bunk while awake!).

The team arrived back in London very tired, a bit sunburned, greatly improved at fives, and look forwards to putting their experience into practice next season.

P.M C.

St Olave's Swiss Tour 2007 by Peter Cohen
Created 22nd January 2008 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk

Go to EFA Home page