RFA President's newsletter Autumn 2024

As a sport, Fives is vulnerable, for many of the reasons that also make it attractive to the membership. It is very much a minority sport. A lot of people have never heard of it; others do not see the attraction and cannot think why it might be more enjoyable than other sports. And yet to those who have been introduced to the game and have persevered, it is the best: it can be played at many different levels, it is exciting, intense, provides good all-round exercise and is sociable – Rarely is a game played without humorous situations occurring – and the players also enjoy each other’s company off the court. The sport sometimes seems in rude health – The Jesters Tour and Scottish schools come to mind - and yet, overall, we face declining interest from schools and the loss of courts.

The RFA has, over the years, put effort into trying to help preserve the Fives estate – helping schools maintain and replace courts – ‘No courts’ equals ‘no Fives’. However, often the courts that we do have are not used to the same extent as, say, Squash courts. I would like to see more effort going into driving demand for the sport, both within schools and the wider public. This is an area that I will prioritize during my presidency. If we can create the interest and the demand then the rest can follow. I have been fascinated by the success of Squash Fives at Strathallan and Stamford. Ewan Lee and Alex Smith have got people playing and that is allowing them to put forward plans for new Fives courts.

I hope you enjoy the 2024/25 Fives Season

Tournaments

Congratulations to Ben Beltrami and Ed Kay, winners of the Yorkshire and London Opens respectively. Sadly, both the New Lady’s Cup and the Owers Trophy had to be postponed due to the insufficient numbers entering. For the Owers, we are hoping to reorganise later in the season and to recruit individual school organisers to help the Tournament organiser (and arm them with a list of former alumni who could be available to play!)

The London Open saw the introduction of “Tournify”, an app which allows players to enter and pay for their entry, the organiser to arrange (and re-arrange) the draw, and enter results in real time which can be accessed by others with the app. Given these advantages, following this successful trial we are hoping to use this app widely for future competitions.

Support for Tournament Entry: The RFA wishes to encourage younger players to enter tournaments, advance their game, and become integrated into the Fives community through meeting other competitors. We are aware that younger players, particularly those not playing in a tournament as part of an established school or University team may find it too expensive to travel to tournaments, and that some people are unclear about what expenses they can claim and how to do so.

The RFA has therefore revised the policy on expenses for tournaments and developed a new method of claiming them. To be eligible you must be in full time education at school or university.

The new policy is now on the website (RFA Expenses Policy (2024) (therfa.uk)), and there is a link to the online claim form. The only requirement is that you will need a google account to use the form.

In simple terms you can claim up to £80 towards travel and £50 towards accommodation (£70 in London) for a single tournament and up to a maximum of £400 in a season (September – August). A claim must be supported by receipts. The tournaments which are eligible are: University Championships, U25 Championships, and Open Championships.

Acknowledgements

The RFA would like to acknowledge to following for their contributions to Fives:

Tony Burrows, who is retiring from Oundle School, where he was the Fives coach for many years until illness forced him to take a more supportive background role.

John Hawke, who is standing down as organiser of the Yorkshire Open after 14 years. His generous and relaxed style has made this tournament a pleasure to attend

Squash Fives

The President has emphasized the potential of SquashFives to generate wider interest in our sport. Peter Grant (Bristol) is currently working on behalf of the he Board to create a plan for the development of SquashFives. Price’s of Bath (makers of Eton Fives balls) are working on prototypes of a rubber ball which is designed to be used in a squash court without the need for heavily padded gloves. The first prototype was still too bouncy, and so they have been asked to modify the composition slightly. Once approved, we intend to ask Price’s to manufacture the ball and sell it through their website. New players could use cycling, weight-training or any leather gloves to try this out. We hope this will help Fives players living, studying or working near squash courts but not near Fives courts to find others ready to give Fives a go. Those attending Universities without Fives courts can also continue to play on the squash courts without having to form a separate club.

And finally

Fives dating?

One of our Members noticed that the “Salt” dating website includes Fives as one of the options under “How do you like to stay active?”. Should we be encouraging Tinder? 😊