Foreword

The weather wasn't great - but the Tournament was! Very well attended again with eighty players, it was wonderful to see all eighteen Highgate School Fives courts in full use throughout the weekend. Everyone played through a large Pool of pairs on the Saturday in order to determine their position in the draw for the following day. Trophies were to be awarded for categories Main Tournament, Main Tournament B, Festival and Festival B.

There were players from nineteen different schools and clubs, including:

Old Berkhamstedians, Old Harrovians, Old Citizens, Old Edwardians, Old Olavians, Emanuel Old Boys, Old Carthusians, Old Cholmeleians, Old Salopians, Old Ipswichians, UCS Old Boys, Goddington Club, Park Avenue Club, Lancing College, St.Olave's School, Westminster School, City of London School, Stoke Newington Old Boys and Tiffin School. It was again superb to see boys and girls from one of the boarding schools - Lancing College - make the effort to travel to such an event having arranged to take time out from Saturday school, and to stay overnight in London. It would be good to see more schools taking part in tournaments like this in the future. As well as helping to develop youngsters' Fives, taking part in an adult tournament makes it more likely for the school Fives players to continue playing the game as adults.

Main Tournament

The exciting one-game to 15 points matches in the qualifying pools of the Main tournament were to determine the final seedings for the line-up on the Sunday morning. Arguably the most surprising performance came from the young and relatively unknown Luke Stradwick and Billy Dennis (St.Olave's School) who played consistently well throughout their pool matches to line up in third place out of seven experienced pairs, including a win over John Reynolds & Robin Nagy along the way. Courtney Friend and Mark Graves also appeared to be on particularly good form, ending up in second place behind Taylor and Tyler in their pool. Niifio Addy and Alick Varma hit some great form to finish second in their pool behind Matthew Wiseman and James Toop. Matt and James appeared to be close to their best form and managed to destroy everyone in their pool.

Ed Taylor's performance as a dwarf (Ed is well over 6ft!!) in a pantomime forced the Tyler / Taylor partnership to withdraw before the semi-finals. I hope that Snow White was worthy of such commitment!!! The semi-finals were over rather quickly. Courtney and Mark had played superbly to defeat Howard Wiseman and David Mew on sudden death in the final game of the quarter-finals, but had no answers to the Wiseman-Toop partnership who were in a league of their own. Niifio Addy and Alick Varma were on top of their game too and dismissed Colin Wilson and Ed Sanderson very efficiently.

Alick's fighting spirit and Niifio's determination kept them afloat for a while in the final and they managed to whittle down the commanding lead against them in the first two games. There were some extraordinary rallies, and Niifio perfomed some incredible displays of retrieving the ball from yards outside the court. Matt and James were always in the driving seat. The final was concluded in three straight games - Matt and James had defended their title with great flair and consistency. Congratulations to them. They get to keep the "Wooden Buttress" Trophy for at least another year.

Main Tournament B

This was won by the Sunday morning scratch pairing of Mark Herring and Ed Buxton.

The Festival

Pools matches consisted of six pairs each, with only two pairs from each pool moving forward to the quarter-finals the next morning. Each match was one game to 15 points. The standard was fairly even, and there were numerous sudden-death matches making for some very exciting situations. The Lancing U15 pair of Westcombe and Yellowley caused the main shock at this stage by narrowly defeating one of the top seeds - Mason-Malik and Korris who had performed so well during the previous year's tournament.

One hundred one-game matches were played during the day to decide which eight pairs progressed through to the quarter-finals the next morning. Steven Walters and Steven Spurrell (Old Olavians) powered their way through to the final where they met a strong senior pair from St.Olave's School - Stuart Stringer and Harry Manning. This was a four-game match which could have gone either way. Harry Manning played particularly well to compensate for the badly turned ankle that his partner gained in the second game and after two hours, managed to run out as the new Festival Champions. There was also a play-off to establish the 6th - 8th positions.

Festival B

Sixteen pairs took part in this category on the Sunday, and resulted in two desperately close semi-finals. Charlotta Cooley and Anita Ganguly, the Schoolgirls' National Champions, played particularly well to squeeze past a strong Olavian pair by one point to qualify for the semi-finals, but were just unable to beat Ameen Ahmed and Chris Smith in the semi-finals, losing 13-15. In the other semi-final, the Westminster pair of Anthony Ellis and James Cook played Dash Mason and Steve Korris (both experienced school-level Rugby Fives players). This match was close all the way, and was finally won by Dash and Steve. Dash and Steve played superb Fives in the final to convincingly overcome Ameen and Chris - their Rugby Fives stamina clearly paying off at the end of a long weekend!!!

Results

Main

Main B Winners :

Festival

Festival B Winners :

London Tournament Report 2002-2003 by Howard Wiseman
Finalised 3rd December 2002
efa@etonfives.co.uk

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