Club History

North Oxford Eton Fives Club was founded by Andy Bishop at Summer Fields school in 1995 with the early professional expertise provided by Robin Mason. The club started with a weekly club night for friendly Fives and this remains the cornerstone of the club's existence, with the two indoor courts at Summer Fields being regularly filled every Monday evening from 8pm throughout the year by Fives players from the Oxfordshire area and beyond of all ages and abilities.

New players were gradually recruited and with the arrival of current club captain Gareth Hoskins in 1998 and Chris Davies and Chris Lloyd soon after, the standard began to rise along with the size of the club membership. 2004 saw the club's first foray into the world of competitive Fives, entering the EFA Trophy and making it all the way to the final, losing only to the Old Salopians. This feat was repeated the following year and with the arrival of a whole raft of new players it was decided to enter a side into the League for the 2006/07 season.

Having achieved promotion from Division 3 at the first attempt, the club now finds itself more than ten years on with a team in each Division and also has an increasing number of friendly fixtures against other clubs. We won the EFA Trophy competition in 2009 after five consecutive near misses and were Division 2 Champions in 2009 and then three years in a row from 2012-2014. Under the captaincy of Spencer Chapman, North Oxford spin-off team The Aston House Thoroughbreds won the inaugural Westway Summer Superleague in 2010, before finally winning a second title in 2017 and further wins in 2019 and 2022. 2014/15 saw the club play in Division 1 for the first time ever, with a record high finish of second in 2021/22. The North Oxford women's team finished as runners-up in the Richard Black Cup for four consecutive seasons before finally winning the competition and becoming national team champions for the first time in November 2017. This has been followed by wins in 2018 and 2021 as well as a first ever win in the Boughton Bowl (mixed team tournament) in 2021. We currently have teams in all three divisions of the league and play around 50 fixtures each season in total.

We have also occasionally ventured onto Rugby Fives, Winchester Fives and Real Tennis courts as well as investigating various other versions of handball around the Uk and abroad. Off court there are regular social events with the start of season curry, Christmas Dinner and summer family barbecue now well-established in the calendar as well as regular summer mini-tours.

We are always keen to recruit new players of any age and ability (including beginners) who want to play on a Monday night and/or in any of our competitive or friendly fixtures - please get in touch with us if you would like to know more.