We had a good season at Wessex this year, the standard of the club being raised by some excellent schoolboys from Winchester College.
Tom Watkinson won the National Schools U18 and Albert Song the U16 trophy and, with the continuing presence of a number of other almost equally talented colts, the College will be strong for a while.
The Wessex club was once again well represented on the Jesters Fives tour to Edinburgh in January and in the Winchester Fives team against the Rugby Fives Association in which a strong RFA won 258-230 after a very close fought match.
Newcomers this season, with between twenty and forty five years since they last played, include Nigel Gainsborough (Alleyns ), Giles Stimson (Blundell’s), Neil Sherrif (Sedbergh) and Philip Siddall (Winchester local).
Jonathan Dunlop and Rainier Valcarel started from scratch and like most good squash players were soon holding their own: for any struggling Club, there must be a huge pool of potential players who would enjoy the switch to a doubles game.
The highlight of our season though was, without doubt, winning the Wood Cup Club knockout. The entry of a Cambridge University team, their top players being Old Paulines, weakened the OP’s representative team just enough to enable our four of Ellison, Butler, Munn and Akerman to enjoy a victorious weekend in the Spring sunshine at St Pauls. No doubt St Pauls will come back stronger next year!
Our own internal Letchworth competition was won by two of the colts (Pete Kullavanijaya and Alec Younger) from Winchester College so we already know how hard we will have to work trying to keep up with them next season!