Robert Wilson reports:
On Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd June, Cambridge University Eton Fives Club played a twenty-four hour sponsored match on the court at Magdalene College to raise money for the three Eton Fives courts that are being built in the new sports centre for October 2013. So far, nearly £1,000 has been raised, with the overall appeal requiring under £40,000 of the total £440,000 needed.
The match started at 12 midday on Saturday 22nd June, with early contributions from club President Rodney Knight and his son Joss getting things off to a flying start. The arrival of Laurie Brock at 1.00 heralded a marked increase in tempo, and, ably supported by Chris Meiring, he succeeded in tiring out a number of the players scheduled to play long into the night! A particular sufferer was Jamie Abbott, who even when Laurie left at 5.00 was only just over a third of the way through his mammoth 14 hour stint. Indeed, by the time Jamie finished at 2.00am, in time to rest before four days of cricket starting from the Sunday morning, ten other stints, most of four hours, had been and gone around him.
Amid all this was the annual CUEFC garden party, held in the garden of Springfield, Caius, with barbecue and Pimm’s enjoyed by various members of the club not otherwise disposed at Magdalene, along with several of the Knight family. Shaneil Patel’s barbecuing skills were appreciated by all, but his decision to half-fill his water bottle with Pimm’s turned out to be perhaps not the wisest one!
As play continued into the night, there were valuable four hour contributions from Olivia Prankerd-Smith, Marta Karbowska, Elana Osen, whose hand-made event T-shirts looked outstanding, and Anneliese O’Malley, who celebrated the 4am dawn by bringing sparkling wine. These were much appreciated by Jack Weller, Andrew Crawford, and Robert Wilson, who played on and off through the night, finishing at 9am, 10am, and 12 noon respectively, and amassing 41 hours of Fives in total.
The arrival of Joe Ataman, Elli Hullis, and Gareth Hoskins on the Sunday morning brought much needed fresh legs to the affair, and they mercifully kept Robert Wilson from exerting himself too much in his fifteenth and sixteenth hours of Fives. Come 12 o’clock, Rodney Knight was again on hand to round off the event, and reflect on a job well done.
Thanks go to all those who participated in the event, and particularly also everyone who has donated to it. Thank you also to Rodney Knight and Peter Reynolds for their continued hard work in running the club, to Rodney for all his outstanding work in raising funds for the appeal, along with Gareth Hoskins, Richard Black, Peter Worth and Dale Vargas, and to Derek Whitehead for getting the EFA Charitable Trust set up on JustGiving.