The second International Tournament was held on October 2nd and 3rd 1982 at King Edward's School Birmingham and King Edward's Camp Hill.
As a prelude to the Tournament, the West German team played King Edward's Five Ways on the Friday evening, losing a close match 3-0 while the Swiss side were entertained by Camp Hill School. This was the School's first match since the complete modernisarion of their courts, and the occasion was celebrated by the Headmaster inviting the overseas guests to a cheese and wine event. Camp Hill won a very entertaining and skilful match 3-0.
Saturday morning saw not only the commencement of the Tournament, but to the complete surprise of the organlser, the arrival of both the Welsh and Scottish teams with full complement.
In the morning, Scotland duly beat West Germany 3-0 while Switzerland succumbed by the same margin to both England Under 21 and Wales. In the afternoon the main match of interest was that of England Under 21 against Wales. Here the inexperience of the young England side showed when their pairings were somewhat suspect with their captain, Andrew Stevenson, playing in the third pair, leaving their second pair with too much to do to beat the experienced Welsh who won 2-1. 0n the Saturday evening, West Germany and Switzerland were invited guests of the Eton Fives Association at a celebration dinner held at the Edgbaston Priory Club, and this event was enjoyed by all who attended.
Sunday opened in brilliant sunshine and saw the main match of the Tournament, at least in the view of the overseas players, namely West Germany and Switzerland, which was played at Camp Hill and resulted in a sweeping success for the West German side, which left their rivals Switzerland at the bottom of the table. It was, however, very noticeable that the standard of the overseas players had improved beyond recognition from the first International in May 1981,and particularly with the development of the game in Germany, there are excellent opportunities for the young players to emerge as serious challengers to those in Britain. The West German first pair, Marpmann and Paffrath, are the current German Champions and gave the home players some testing games at first pair.
Meanwhile, at King Edward's School the semi-finals were actively contested. The Celtic derby between Wales and Scotland produced many fine games of which the first court was undoubtedly the most interesting, where Gordon Campbell partnered by Andrew Elliott for Scotland, opposed Robin Mousdale partnered by Mark VVilliams for Wales.The two older players, both former British Champions, played many shots reminiscent of their great days and in the end, with second and third pairs going equally to Scotland and Wales, the match was decided when the Welsh first pair won the fifth game 15-13.
In the other semi-final a notable event occurred at third pair when Mark Blundell and Peter Boughton lost the first game ever for England, but they came back to win the match 3-1, beating the talented 1982 Public Schools Champions. Brian Matthews and Richard Lambert won first pair convincingly over the 1981 Public School winners, Matt Parsons and John Bowen and when most competitors were at lunch England's second pair completed a lengthy 3-0 win over Grant Williams and Tim Anderson, the main problem being the complete inability of John Reynolds and Tony Hughes to communicate with each other.
In excellent weather, the final matches commenced at 3 p.m. with a surprisingly large number of spectators, and whilst England Under 21 beat Scotland 3-0 to achieve third place, the Final was between Wales, a truly emerging nation in this game, and England. Although England won all three pairs without dropping a game, it is pertinent to record that the match was fiercely contested and both the first and second pairs were not without incident. Thus England retained the title and there was no doubt that the Tournament was an outstanding success for all the nations that competed, and indeed the games were more enjoyable and closely contested than expected.
It must be hoped that the third international will not be too distant and that West Germany, now with three courts in close proximity, could be persuaded to host this event in April 1984.
Group 1
Scotland 3 West Germany 0
England 3 West Germany 0
England 3 Scotland 0
Group 2
England Under 21 3 Switzerland 0
Wales 3 Switzerland 0
Wales 2 England Under 21 1
Semi-Finals
England 3 England Under 21 0
Wales 2 Scotland 1
Final
England 3 Wales 0
Third Place Play Off
England Under 21 3 Scotland 0
Final Place Play Off
West Germany 3 Switzerland 0
International Tournament 1982
Created 7th February 2006 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk