NEWS
Wood Plate and an Alpine Adventure
Sam Packer wins his first OC silverware
Evergreen Mark Stockton and tireless tyro Sam Packer are Wood Plate champions after a hard-fought final against determined underdogs Bobby Friedman and Pete Chen.
It seemed touch-and-go as the first-t0-12 game neared its denouement and Bobby and the fast improving Pete, our guest from the Old Cholmeleians, pinned down Mark and Sam with some hard cutting. Points dried up for the favourites but their generosity never deserted them and they wrapped it up 12-8 (or something like that).
Some seventeen of us competed in the season-opening trophy, including three CLS schoolboys (school captain Jivan Navani, Henry Davidson and Harrison Jones).
Lots of us - practically all of us - wore OCEFC colours and we were lucky that the unusually warm weather was just right for the new maroon summer polo top.
Geoff Bates came along to present the silverware.
Nearly 20 of us had lunch in The Bull.
The Wood Plate was presented in the 1970s by OC Tom Wood as an adjunct to the Adams Cup but these days is held in the autumn to mark the beginning of the Eton fives season, with the Adams Cup held in the spring, to mark the end of the season.
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Six go on an adventure in the Swiss Alps
Six Old Citizen fives players travelled to Zuoz in early September to help the Swiss celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first Eton Fives court in Zurich.
Geoff Bates, David Cooper, Gordon Stringer and David White were returning to the splendid Alpine courts some 50 years after they first travelled there.
Rachel Douek, her husband and OC Mark George Jacobs and John Reynolds completed the OCEFC parrty.
Some 50 fives players - 25 of them English - gathered to play on the school's six courts, courtesy of Zuoz Fives Club Zurich boss Daniel Haering. We were evenly split into a 12-pair main tournament and a festival.
George won the festival, playing with the school's chemistry teacher, Peter Suess, against Old Chum James Fredenham and Old Zuozer Dieter Büchi.
We were entertained royally by our hosts - including being treated to a splendid supper on the Saturday night.
More trips to Zuoz, Zurich and Geneva are planned.
JPR
