THINK OF Eton fives and you will probably conjure an image of louche public schoolboys with floppy fringes and accents you could chip ice with, Brideshead types who would indulge in a game in between fagging and prep. The game’s latest converts, however, could not be further from that image. Go most mornings to Britain’s newest fives courts, located next to a ragged travellers’ camp in the shadow of the Westway, the giant concrete flyover that swoops through West London, and you will see a gaggle of noisy children from local primary schools enthusiastically bashing at the game’s red and yellow balls. Since the courts opened in January, hundreds of children have been introduced to the ancient game, and fives is proving a hit.
The courts are a part of the Westway Sports Centre, and were built with lottery money after the Eton Fives Association persuaded the Government that the game might catch on with city schools on the lookout for new sports. They have blitzed local schools and youth clubs with information.
At first glance fives might seem an unlikely contender for the saviour of school sport. It is played on a court about two thirds the size of a squash court with a step across the middle, a balustrade on the left-hand wall (the “pepperpot”, an exact replica of the flying buttress on the wall of the chapel at Eton where the game was first played) and a copy of a drain along the left wall, known as the “dead man’s hole”. You simply whack the ball against the wall with your hands, hence “fives”, as in “bunch of”. The game is played in pairs, and at the highest level it is fiendishly tactical. It resembles real tennis; Rugby fives is similar, but without the bizarre obstacles.
Can such an eccentric game grab the attention of children brought up on PlayStations, Pokémon and endless reruns of David Beckham free kicks? Andrew Evans, a teacher at St Saviour’s Primary in Maida Vale, thinks so. “We put fives in the timetable for our 10 and 11-year-olds last term and it was wonderful,” he says. “As soon as they got back they were on the internet looking for more information about it. You could see that it is great for co-ordination, tactical thinking and positioning.”
One of the game’s other benefits, explains Evans, is that no equipment is needed. The idea that fives could become a popular school sport is not as far-fetched as it might seem. High Wycombe Grammar resurrected its courts a couple of years ago, and since the Westway courts opened, Westminster and City of London Schools have started playing again. Comprehensives such as the City of Norwich School and Stoke Newington School in North London also play. Stoke Newington was the first comprehensive to win the national under-14s championships. Comprehensives in March, Cambridgeshire, and Newbury, Berkshire, are considering renovating their courts. There are thought to be between 300 and 400 courts sitting idle across the country, and the Eton Fives Association is keen to get them reopened.
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Jan Watson, the head of PE at City of Norwich, thinks that the game has a lot to offer. “It is a bit unusual and there are people that it appeals to, perhaps those who are not into contact sports, or team games such as football and netball. The atmosphere is different too; there are no referees, so you make your own calls and you have to be assertive. We play fixtures against public schools, and going there can be an experience. We have pupils from all sorts of backgrounds, and for some of them it is a big thing to eat in the Great Hall at Harrow.”
The one thing that might stop the spread of fives is that there are not enough courts. But with the development of a new version of the game, that could change. “There is a new game that is played on a squash court,” says Howard Wiseman, whose Rugby and Eton Fives Coaching Agency teaches the game in schools. “There are squash courts sitting empty during the day all over the country and there is no reason why schools couldn’t use them for fives. We are hoping that the Westway might be the start of something big.”
JEREMY HAZLEHURST