Salopians Put A New Name On The Richard Black Cup

Salopians Put A New Name On The Richard Black Cup

20/11/24: There was a new winner of the Richard Black Cup in association with Advanta Wealth at Harrow on Sunday as the Old Salopians claimed the trophy for the first time.

A healthy entry of eight teams made it to Harrow for this year's competition and when the dust finally settled on the usual multiple drop outs in the 48 hours leading up to the tournament, only two of them were one short of a full complement and even they were able to borrow a spare player (thanks to Shrewsbury School's contingent and the efforts of Adam Morris and David Exley) to ensure that all twelve courts remained full all day.

There was an excitingly open look to the competition at the start with several contenders for the title: perennial finalists and defending champions North Oxford were back again, but with a much changed line-up containing only two players from their previous winning teams; the Old Salopians - whose arrival in this competition has been long awaited - were finally there with a strong team; Westway looked formidable but were handicapped by late withdrawals and only being able to field five players; Ipswich and Repton both contained a nice mix of a national champion staff member alongside current and former pupils; Shrewsbury School showed their strength in depth with two teams, although the enforced absence of some of their top players meant they weren't quite as strong at the top end as they might have been; and there was also a Cambridge past and present team, also heavily hit by late withdrawals but bolstered by the late inclusion of former Dark Blue Marjolaine Briscoe.

The first phase of the competition consisted of two groups of four teams, with the top two from each heading into the main semi-finals and the other four into the Plate. Westway and Repton both had the edge on North Oxford at first pair in Group A with Elana Garfield-Osen & Mimi Anderson for Westway and Karen Hird with a variety of Repton partners all playing some excellent Fives. The defending champions had the strength in depth, though, varying their pairs and using the experience of Rachel Wood, Harry Asquith and Olivia Prankerd Smith to get the best out of their younger players, who included Charlotte Barr - Cranleigh's first ever national schools' champion earlier in the year. Westway had enough top order strength to qualify ahead of Repton in second place despite the absence of a counting third pair and the Shrewsbury second string showed plenty of promise and picked up a couple of useful wins.

Group B was dominated by the Old Salopians, who quickly announced themselves as strong contenders. The sextet of Emma Graham, Lizzie Ware, Sophia Breese, Sarah Jackman, Morgan Butler and Liv Millar (the one current schoolgirl in the line-up) came close to winning nine out of nine matches, with only a 14-15 reverse at the hands of Ipswich's Charlotta Cooley & Nadia Mason spoiling their 100% record. The remainder of the Ipswich team featured four Year 9 girls and even though Shrewsbury School's A team were not at full strength it was still an impressive effort from the Ipswich side to qualify for the last four, which bodes well for their future chances in this competition if they can keep the side together. Shrewsbury just came out ahead of the Cambridge team to claim third place in the group.

The tournament then moved on to the knockout stages, with Shrewsbury A getting the better of their younger counterparts in one plate semi-final and Repton taking advantage of Cambridge's ineligible third pair to win their match 2-1. Cambridge finished on a high with a win over Shrewsbury B while the Repton side rose to the occasion and produced their best performance of the day in the Plate final, winning well at first and third pair against Shrewsbury A and only missing out on a clean sweep thanks to a fighting 15-13 Shrewsbury second pair win.

In the main tournament semi-finals, North Oxford rang the pairing changes again, using their strength in depth to win at second and third pairs against Ipswich and make it through to yet another final, despite a strong first pair win for Charlotta Cooley & the impressive Betsy Laws. In the other semi-final, the Westway first pair of Elana & Mimi produced another dominant performance, but with third pair conceded to the Old Salopians, the Salopians second pair of Sophia Breese & Sarah Jackman were too strong for Westway captain Natalie Lilienthal & Rugby Fives star Shinan Zhang and ensured their team's progress into the final. It's worth noting here how great it was to see Shinan taking part in an Eton Fives tournament; those who have seen her play Rugby Fives and Wallball before will not have been in the least surprised to see just how well she took to it, improving at a rapid pace as she quickly adjusted to the different angles and techniques of the Eton court. We hope to see her again soon!

Ipswich and Westway then played out a cracker of a 3rd/4th place match - 2-1 to Ipswich with a 15-14 and 15-13 win and a 14-15 defeat - while the two sides with definitely the strongest teams, if not necessarily the strongest individual pairs, took each other on it the final. North Oxford realised that the tactic of concentrating their resources on second and third pairs was not going to work against the deep Salopian line-up and instead paired the two Oxford University players Darcy & Rachel M together at third. They fought hard in the first game against Morgan & Liv but fell away in the second giving the Salopians a 1-0 lead and an early advantage. This left North Oxfod needing to win both the top two pairs to retain their title and right from the start it was clear that both games were going to be incredibly close. Both pairs went to 10-10 in the first game, Charlotte & Olivia edging the second pair 13-12 against Sophia & Sarah for North Oxford and Emma & Lizzie winning 13-10 against Rachel W and Harry for the Salopians. There was hope for North Oxford as Harry & Rachel nosed ahead in the second game of their match, while Charlotte & Olivia came from behind to close to 10-11 in theirs. That was as close as they got, though, as Sophia & Sarah held on to win 12-10 before going on to win the third 12-7 and Emma & Lizzie came from behind to snatch their game 14-13 after Rachel & Harry had missed several golden opportunities to take it to a third.

The final was played in a fantastic spirit and to a fantastic standard and was a fitting ending to a terrific tournament. The Richard Black Cup has been waiting for a while now for the flow of talented players coming out of Shrewsbury to turn themselves into a competitive team and they thoroughly deserved their victory. It is very much to be hoped that this is the start of something rather than just a glorious one-off.

Richard Black himself was on hand as always, alongside Krystyna Vargas, to hand out the medals, trophies and chocolates. Our thanks go to them, to Advanta Wealth for their sponsorship of the tournament, to Harrow for hosting it and to all of the people - Charlotta Cooley, Peter Boughton, Tony Stubbs, Karen Hird, David Exley, Adam Morris, Andy Barnard, Natalie Lilienthal, Jessye Tu, Morgan Butler - who helped put teams together and make things work on the day.

Group A

1. North Oxford 7 points

2. Westway 5 points

3. Repton 4 points

4. Shrewsbury B 2 points

Group B

1. Old Salopians 8 points

2. Ipswich 5 points

3. Shrewsbury A 3 points

4. Cambridge P&P 2 points

Semi-Finals

North Oxford beat Ipswich 2-1