Another good year at the Wessex Club when we were delighted to welcome our first lady member Shi-Nan Zhang (played fives at Malvern College) who brought along with her 3 other fellow students from Southampton University (Laurence Reeves, Scott Jordon and Nayef Alzayani) all of whom are new to fives but are keen and talented sportsmen.
With these new players taking to the game so quickly and with the boys from Winchester College being so strong at the moment there were few gentle games to be had regardless of who is put on court together. Battles on the court seem to go on later and later into the evening, but we have not lost sight of the fact that sausages and the Wykeham Arms remain a core part of our evenings!
Other highlights in the year included a fantastic match of the ‘Winchester Fives Association’ against the RFA where we came out narrow winners with a 266-257 overall score.
We also had a very enjoyable curry and fives evening with Exeter Fives Club winning 211-173 (but Alex Rew and Alex Steel remained an unbeaten team for the second year running), and then in April we retained the Wood Cup…. but we had doubled our chances by entering 2 teams!
Our biggest ever end of season tournament saw 36 players competing for the Letchworth Bowl and this year Ed Hawke and Nigel Gainsborough came out eventual winners.
Thanks also needs to go to Mike Crompton and his team at Summit for so generously giving of their time to create our brilliant new club website. Thanks Mike! (www.wessexfivesclub.org.uk)