The Trusty Servant May 2015 No.119 | Page 13

NO.119 T H E T R U S T Y S E RVA N T Fives at Winchester: some history and a resurgence Jamie McManus, Housemaster of Freddie’s,writes: I must admit straightaway that I write with some pride following recent success on the Fives courts. First, a history lesson*. In its modern form, Fives at Winchester sprang to life in 1862 when the Rev’d CH Ridding, a former Second Master, presented four indoor courts to be built on Meads. These were soon followed by three more, presented by Headmaster George Ridding in 1882, and these seven courts sustained the School until 1922, when they were demolished to make room for the construction of War Cloister and replacements were built on Kingsgate Park. In the meantime, however, five new courts had also been built by subscription in 1908/9: it is four of these which are still going strong today, whilst the eight built on KP in 1922 were converted into workshops in the late 1950s as the game’s popularity waned. Fives enjoyed particularly good health at Winchester during the first part of the 20th century. The most successful player of the period was RdeWK Winlaw (A, 26-31) who won the inaugural Public Schools’ Fives Singles Championship in 1930 and then went one better the following year, repeating his Singles success and sharing in a doubles victory with HJH Lamb (G, 25-31). Winlaw was a talented sportsman indeed: he scored 977 runs for Cambridge University in 1934, and won 6 Blues in total; sadly he was killed in a night-flying accident during the War. However in an era that produced many fine cricketers, there were a number of other good players including: HD Wrench, AWE Winlaw, GHG Doggart, AP Doggart, JV Bardsley, MD Scott and D Barnes. On leaving school, Bardsley and Scott were runners-up in the Cyriax Cup (National Open Doubles) in 1952 and 1956 respectively, but otherwise David Barnes was the first and only Wykehamist to win adult honours: the West of England Open Doubles in 1971 and 1978 and the National Winchester Fives Doubles in 1988, while Bradfield benefitted from the stream of excellent young players that he coached to success. So, as the 20th century ended, tournament success for Wykehamists had proved pretty elusive with just 3 schoolboy titles and one national adult title. The recent change in Winchester’s fortunes at a national level can be traced back to 1998 when James Hodgins became Master-in-Charge, although the game was already on an up after the efforts of Nick MacKinnon. Despite James never having played the game before, his sporting knowhow and sheer enthusiasm led to a further increase in participation and by January 2000 a Wykehamist, James Bristow (D, 96-01), had won a national schoolboy title (the West of England Open Singles) for the first time in sixty-nine years. His talent would be recognised again a few years later when he captained the Oxford Rugby Fives team to victory in the varsity match. More boys followed in his wake and it was not long before the names Hal Mohammed (F, 00-05), Ollie Pumphrey (G, 00-05), Hiro Ishii (G, 99-04) and Will Ellison (C, 00-05) amongst others were added to the honours board that now proudly records national title success. Indeed, as the list below shows, since 2000 Wykehamists have won a total of 23 titles across the three tournaments that make up the season: the Schools’ Winchester Doubles (U18); The West of England Schools’ Championships (U18 and U16); and the National Schools’ Championships (U18, U16 and U14). Of course it helped that, following my own arrival in 13 Will Ellison proudly holds the Jesters Cup (won at the fifth attempt) as national Singles Champion in December 2014 September 2001, there were now two dons giving time to the game. Why is all this worthy of comment at this particular juncture? It is simply that 2014-2015 has already proved yet more exceptional than those before: of the eleven titles competed for across all age groups this year, Winchester has won six: the U16 Singles, U16 Doubles and U18 Singles titles at the West of England tournament; Tom Watkinson (I) won the U18 Singles and Albert Song (E) the U16 Single at the National Schools’ Championships – Tom being the first Wykehamist U18 champion since Roger Winlaw and Albert the first Wykehamist ever to win the U16 national title - while Alex Poyntz (I) was runner-up in the U14 Singles but with his partner, Ben Kullavanijaya (E), won the U14 Doubles.