Fives Goes Travelling

A visit to Engadin, Zuoz July 2000

This report by Paul Thompson first appeared in the Eton Fives Association Annual report 2000/01

Some had thought that it was mighty ambitious trying to organise an Eton Fives tour to Zuoz, Switzerland, for a long weekend. Curt Schmitt's expertise in so many languages, however, and his success in arranging free accommodation , made it all possible in the end.

The first day was disastrous in many ways. Someone was booked for the wrong flight; and there were to fit into the van. To round it off, our best player managed to injure himself in the evening warm-up.

The second day was always going to be tricky. The staff of the school had arranged two other matches for us before we played against them, which meant that without being fully acclimatised to the high altitude and hot weather, some people ended up playing fives almost continuously from two till eleven.

We lost the first match against St Olaves (a visiting school from England) 3-1, with Steve Block and Adrian Lewis the only triumphant pair. The match against the Swiss school, however, was much easier, Cambridge winning 5-0.

The next game was the much awaited match against the staff of the school, whom we were told had been in training. The Blues eventually lost 2-3, with the first pair, James Birch and the departing captain Al Taylor narrowly losing the deciding match. They later claimed that their match would have been even closer had they not been so tired from matches earlier in the day.

The only other serious fives of the trip to Zuoz was an Open Tournament with pairs of roughly equal strength. This meant playing with unusual partners, perhaps from St Olaves or maybe from the school. Cambridge did well, with five of our squad in the semi-finals and James Birch and Robin Chatterjee winning the plate competition. Fittingly, in his last serious match as captain, Al won the tournament playing with Paran from St. Olaves 14-13 in the final, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in an exciting climax.