Tuesday nights have been slightly quieter in the Wykeham Arms this season as this was the year when we realised at Wessex that we are not as young as we once were! We sadly lost regular members for large parts of the season with injuries to feet, knees, hips, hand, heart, eyes and brain!
I am happy to report though that we are expecting almost all on the sick list to be ‘fit’ and raring to go again come September ‘18 so fingers crossed for a healthier season next year.
Despite this we had some excellent fives with the club well represented in the WFA vs RFA match (which we lost 289-230) and the annual Jester’s trip to Edinburgh (12 players).
The highlight though was winning back the Wood Cup thanks to our squad of Will Ellison, Dave Butler, Ed Hawke, James Birch, Giles Munn, and Ian Mettam who survived the sauna that was St Paul’s on a hot April weekend.
For those interested in the Wessex version (well Dave Butler’s version!) of the events that weekend please see www.wessexfivesclub.org.uk/news
We also were lucky enough to have the strong Winchester College boys continue to join us and were delighted to see Tom Kidner win the National Schools singles again and also the doubles with his partner Kieran Mackison and we look forward to watching both of them climbing up the rankings in the years to come.
We welcomed a few players this year including the promising left handed, hard hitting (do orthopaedic surgeons know any other way?!) Chris Jack who together with Giles Munn won our end of season Letchworth Bowl.
Finally, a special note of thanks to our very patient treasurer, George Bowyer, who not only keeps us solvent but has the most unobtrusive way of extracting our contributions just twice a year!