RFA President's Newsletter Spring 2025

Picture showing the participants and medalists in the Girls' National Schools

New Courts at Winchester College Celebrated

As many of you know the opening of the new courts at Winchester College (4 Winchester, 2 Rugby) was celebrated by the RFA with a bumper attendance at the National Winchester Fives Doubles “Barnes Bridge” tournament on March 16th. A full report has been published on our website (Hat-trick for Dan & Dan at the Barnes Bridge – The RFA ) and the consensus from those participating is that these are probably the best courts ever built. In particular the glass back walls are thicker, more solidly attached at their base and have a stiffening strut across the top, which together provide a return similar in quality to a solid back wall. The bounce and grip of the floors also seem perfectly balanced. These courts should serve as the blueprint for anyone else wishing to build new courts! What some of you may not have seen is the excellent video made by Dan Grant at the tournaments which is as good an advertisement for the game as one could wish for:

From the Board

The most recent meeting of the RFA Board was held on March 20th. One of the more important functions of the RFA is to use our resources to help and encourage the playing of Fives (such as through coaching) and where courts exist, but are not in good shape, to support their renovation to make them more attractive to play in. The Board is unanimous that this is an appropriate way to use funds, So, if you have ever wondered where your membership fees (and gifts) go, here are some recent examples:

50% of the costs (£6,727) to install a glass back wall at St Andrew’s Prep school in Eastbourne, which is the preparatory school for Eastbourne College. This has standardised their over-long court and provides a covered area for the coach to stand immediately at the back of the court. This was fitted by ACC Leisure who also provided the back wall for the converted squash court at Christ’s Hospital.

Approximately £2k for upgrades (lighting, repairs) to the courts at Giggleswick to get them back into use

£6K for the complete renovation of an unused court at Mount Kelly college in Tavistock. This school has recently started entering tournaments again at U13/U14 level and this has increased numbers wanting to play. The school will now have two avtive courts.

There are plans for the upgrading of the floors and walls of 5 courts at Stoke Newington. If this goes ahead this summer, the cost will be £17.5K, some of which will be funded by the RFA.

Thanks to recent generous donations we are able to support these projects, all of which help to keep the sport alive at these locations. We are always happy to receive contributions to put to good use.

A Question of Gloves

Fives is a very simple game, with very limited equipment needs, but we must be sure that good quality kit can be bought as and when the buyer needs it. The General Secretary has been working with Killshot (a commercial producer of, amongst other things, gloves for Wallball) to produce a glove which we hope will answer the needs of players. It is made of deerskin leather, has a breathable back, and a wrap-around fastener which can be easily used even when you have the first glove on! The final prototype is shown below (it is now the GenSec’s own personal pair). The first batch of gloves are now in production, and are expected to be available through the Killshot website Handball | Kill Shot Handball Gloves in about a week from today .

A Question of Balls

As mentioned in the Autumn Newsletter, Peter Grant has been working with Price’s of Bath, an independent manufacturer of all kinds of rubber balls (including Eton Fives balls) to try to produce a suitable, cheap and softer ball for SquashFives. He and the GenSec went to their factory near Bath to speak to them about small changes to the latest prototype, which is close to being what we were looking for. We hope to receive soon a small batch of two different speeds, which can be tested by players more widely, and we will certainly be asking our two SquashFives playing schools (Strathallan and Stamford) to try them out. The idea is not to entirely replace the existing SquashFives ball, but to provide something suitable for beginners, so they don’t need to use thick padded gloves, and also something to which Squash clubs and court owners can’t object.

For the standard Fives ball, the RFA thinks that it is advisable to be able to source it from more than one provider. The balls used for Pelota/Fronton in the Basque regions of southern France and northern Spain, though larger, are similar in construction to a Fives ball, and makers of these balls seem the obvious candidates for alternative producers. A previous ball maker in France seems no longer to be able to make balls for us, and we were fortunate that Ander Iraizoz, a Basque Pelota player, currently living in the UK, was able to put us in touch with an established maker (Pelotas Zulaika in Navarra) who are now attempting to match the characteristics of a couple of G6 Fives balls sent as examples. Based on the first prototype samples seen (in the photo above), we are confident that they will be able to produce a very satisfactory ball. More news on this, and how they will be sold, next time.

Schools' News

It has been very good to see the participation in regional and national tournaments this season of schools who have not been prominent in recent years – Bloxham, Radley, Mount Kelly, Stoke Newington and UCS all sent players to at least one tournament this year – we hope to see you all again soon!

Many of you will have seen the excellent report on the National Schools Tournament on our website Fiercely contested National Schools Championships – The RFA. If you haven’t seen it yet, please click on the link. Without wishing to repeat what has already been covered so well, it would be wrong not to note the second win for Freddie Hammond-Giles in both singles (while conceding only 3 points in 4 matches) and doubles (with his partner from last year Josh Ferro). This has been done twice before, most recently in 2020/21 by the Alleyn’s pair of Gwydion Wiseman (singles and doubles) and Stuart Scott (doubles). But both Freddie and Josh will be around next year, when we could witness two Fives firsts – the first player to win both singles and doubles schools title three times (Peter Mellor won 3 singles and one doubles title in 1960-62), and the first pair to win the doubles title three times. It will be worth turning up next year to watch!

Above is Charlie Lacewing with the new trophy for the National Schools Singles Runner-up, presented by Julie Harrison in memory of Tony Hamilton..

Fixtures List

Note: the provisional fixtures list for 2025/2026, including dates, locations and organisers, is now available on the RFA website.

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