St Bees Invitational 2025: Hitting The Heights
23/06/25:The third edition of the St.Bees Invitational tournament took place at the weekend, with a terrific weekend of Fives showcasing just how well the sport is thriving at its most northerly outpost.
This year's visiting group consisted of Gareth Hoskins, Mark Yates, Charlotta Cooley, Aroop Bhattacharya, Stefan Nowinski and Tom Goodman and they joined forces with St Bees coaching supremos Laurence Gribble and Brad Simpson and some of the school's top players for two mini tournaments on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.
Fives is a major sport at St Bees, and has now really taken root to create an environment that any Fives enthusiast would dream of witnessing in a school. Sociable, inclusive, cool and popular with everyone, staff and students alike. Perhaps not surprisingly, as a result the standard is improving rapidly and St.Bees players have already made a strong impression this year at the Northern Tournament and the National Schools' Championships. This was on view right from the start of the Saturday tournament, with the students more than holding their own with the adults in a series of timed matches, with a change of partner and a change of opponent each time fully testing their ability to adapt. as well as allowing them to take on board tips and advice from the visiting experts.
The Saturday tournament culminated in a final between two pairs made up of the two top-scoring adults and two top-scoring students from the six matches played. School Fives captain Philippe teamed up with Head of Sport Brad Simpson to take on Charlotta & 2024 champion Bobby in a top quality game that ended in a win for Brad & Philippe, who was the outstanding player in the field and who fully deserved his victory.
Fortified by ice creams at the beach, a swim in the Irish Sea (for one intrepid member of the group anyway), an evening meal at the Queens' Hotel and a hearty full English in the morning, the visitors returned on Sunday morning for a second round with a larger number of students joining the fray this time. Sunday's play followed a similar format, but this time the final was between the four top-scoring St Bees students. Competition was fierce to make it into the top four, with the standard once again impressively high and all those who missed out on a place in the final unlucky to do so. Saturday's champion Philippe again made it through (just...he was given some challenging matches to play on the Sunday by the organiser and did extremely well to qualify at the last gasp) and teamed up with top scorer Clara to take on Raven & Anton. With everyone else watching - and the rain closing in - the four players provided a fitting cimax to the weekend's play, with an excellent final full of long rallies and impressive shot-making, eventually won - just - by Raven & Anton.
This now annual event has become a great addition to the Fives calendar and I would heartily recommend next year's trip. Anyone interested in taking part should
Our thanks go to everyone at St.Bees - with special thanks to Laurence Gribble and Brad Simpson - for being such terrific hosts and we look forward to seeing Fives at St.Bees continue to push on to even greater heights.
Saturday Final
Philippe & Brad beat Bobby & Charlotta 12-8
Sunday Final
Raven & Anton beat Philippe & Clara 12-9
