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.