Wood Plate: Daara's Dramatic Debut

John Reynolds reports:

29/09/26: Schoolboy Daara made his debut in the Old Citizens' Wood Plate last weekend and walked off with the silverware, after partnering guest Chris Lumbard to victory.

Daara and Chris beat Jamie Anderson – fresh out of school himself – and new club treasurer Sam Packer 12-4 in a pulsating final.

Daara and Chris are pictured accepting the trophy (and the purely ceremonial champagne in the case of the schoolboy) from club chairman David White. The plate itself is a handsome sterling silver armada dish donated by a long-time servant of the club, Tom Wood, nearly half a century ago it has been competed for annually ever since.

There were actually three current CLS pupils in the draw, as Daara was joined by Felix and Inigo. We introduced them to the court using a soft version of a fives ball and they graduated to the harder ball for the tournament itself. This approach seemed to work very well, as the two neophytes were playing with great competence by the end of the event.

The draw had been made (largely) at random, having been divided into seeds and non-seeds.

Great credit goes to Stephen Kelly for winning all five of his group matches, cutting and returning cut with great skill, playing solo, and then retiring gracefully to allow the final to be played by the usual number of players. (By explanation, we were actually 11, so one of the six seeds in our random draw needed to go it alone - and Stephen was last out of the hat.)

The pairings were:

Sam Inigo Packer & Jamie Anderson

John Reynolds & Inigo Laughton

John Gee-Grant & Felix Weston

Martin East & Mark George Jacobs

Daara Hopkinson & Chris Lumbard

Stephen Kelly (& Stephen Kelly)

Our new general manager Saajan Shah, recovering from shoulder surgery and unable to play himself, kept the scores. Our new club captain, Edwin Gosnell, was detained in Bath.

Everyone watched the final on a lovely Saturday afternoon in Highgate before we went to lunch at the Turkuaz Brasserie in Highgate Village.