Foreword

This Tournament has now run for seven years. It has been well subscribed every year and has seen a very wide representation from the Fives-playing schools over these years. The tournament is here to stay at both school and adult level, and succeeds in attracting the very finest competitors, as well as embracing less experienced Fives players. Everyone plays the same amount of Fives in the Tournament!! The Rossall courts make for a simply brilliant game, and what a superb setting - Rossall school is a most beautiful school, set on the seafront, just a couple of miles along the coast from the centre of Blackpool. We are very grateful to the kind permission of the Headmaster at Rossall for hosting these championships and for the wonderful food that the catering staff provided.

Thirty-two singles entries and seventeen double entries from nine schools ensured that this event was well supported for the seventh year in a row. Lancing College must be congratulated for sending both girls and boys - Lancing College is near Brighton - a fantastic effort and display of commitment from those individuals.

Most of the participants arrived on Saturday in time for an early evening reception. Practice on the unique courts at Rossall quickly followed. There are eight Rossall Fives courts. They are the only facility that exists on which Rugby, Eton and Winchester Fives players can come together on equal terms. The courts are a hybrid between all three codes of Fives.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning and afternoon are packed with Fives and with all the players thrown together many new friends are always made. The practice in the evening showed that many of the youngsters were of the same standard and the competition looked the most open since the tournament was started.

There weren’t too many shocks in the pools or the quarter-finals. Upppingham were looking very strong and contenders for the doubles. The semi-finals produced four different schools. The scores were 11-5 in each although the scores didn’t reflect the class of the rallies being played by all four players. Vinay Patel from St Olave's looked very strong and came back from 10-5 down to win 11-10. Patel worked hard on returning the cuts and started to mix his game up to good effect. William Betts from Lancing couldn’t quite finish it off and failed to secure the last point for victory but he would still make it to the doubles final. In the other semi-final, Alex Sholtz from Malvern beat C Paxton from Uppingham. Again the losing semi-finalist was still in the doubles final at this point.

The final was up to fifteen points and started closely, both players couldn’t get away from each other up to 4-4 then Patel from St Olave's took control and started dominating the game by scoring a couple of points each serve and when cutting hit the buttress constantly with some superb stroke play. In the end Patel took the game from Sholtz 15-11 and thus won the singles trophy for St Olave's.

Again evenly matched with Uppingham, St Olave's and Lancing looking like the main threats. All the top pairs made it through to the quarter-finals with relative ease, winning all their pools matches by a good margin.

The quarter-finals showed some great rallies and the Fives was really very competitive. St Olave's overcame a strong Uppingham second pair 11-7 and Lancing beat St. Olave's second pair 11-6. The other two results were Uppingham 1 beating St Olave's 3 and Lancing 2 beating Malvern 1.

The main semi-final was St Olave's 1 versus Uppingham 1. This was one of the games of the tournament with some superb retrieval work from all four players. The scores were again always close and only a few points in it until the Uppingham pair found some killer shots to the bricks and took the game 11-8. In the other semi-final Lancing 1 beat their second pair with ease winning 11-4.

The final was between Lancing 1 (W Betts & C Gough) and Uppingham 1 (C Paxton & B Barnett). The game was to fifteen points. The two pairs lived up to past winners of the tournament and treated the spectators to a well played and competitive final both pairs fighting hard for winners. The game was well balanced until Betts started to get hold of the game and gave the Lancing pair a lead of four points to 11-7. But again like in his singles semi-finals couldn’t quite hang on and kill the game. The Uppingham pair started to play some outrageous winners on the bricks and the buttress and scored points freely to eleven all then took the game 15-11.

Malvern won the plate doubles against Emanuel 11-7.

Overall a very successful weekend. Well played to all the youngsters and we hope to see you again next year!

M.R.H./H.M.E.W.

Rossall Schools International 2004-2005 by Mark Herring & Howard Wiseman
Finalised 22nd December 2004 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk

Go to EFA Home page