Pilgrims and OS Sport

Publications

STEPHEN BOYS SMITH (a 64) Thomas Sandwith: A British Consul in the Levant, 1855-1891 Publisher: The Isis Press

ROBERT HANDS (b 92) Puddings, Bullies & Squashes: Early Public School Football Codes Publisher: Sunnyrest Books

CHARLIE HOARE (b 02) Man Down Publisher: Summersdale Publishers Ltd

ROB KITSON (g 82) Exe Men: The Extraordinary Rise of Exeter Chiefs Publisher: Polaris

HUGH POPE (a 78) Dining with al-Qaeda Publisher: Lion of Lycia Press

EDWARD POSNETT (c 03) Strange Harvests:The Hidden Histories of Seven Natural Objects

JOHN RIGBY-JONES (h 73) Tintawn and Bailer Twine Publisher: Fonthill Media

JOHN RUSSELL (d 70) Theirs the Strife Publisher: Helion & Co

LAWRENCE SAIL (c 61) Accidentals Publisher: Impress Books Guises Publisher: Bloodaxe Books

TOM TYLER (a 57) Slavery and Freedom Publisher: Jack of All Trades Publishing

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Pilgrims

After mid-March, Pilgrims sport has had to go into cold storage, hence the much abbreviated report this year and the reason for there being no annual Pilgrims booklet this summer. The future for sport, both professional and amateur, remains uncertain but for a club such as the Pilgrims, with little fixed spending and commitments, the storm can be weathered. It is to be hoped that once the winter is over, and perhaps the pandemic beaten back, the panoply of Pilgrims sport can resume.

Because of the extraordinary circumstances, the usual procedure for joining the Club for the 2020 School leavers was unable to be followed. I would emphasise that the door is always open to any OS, whether sporting superstar or not, to join the Pilgrims – and not just immediately after leaving the School. The Club operates a subsidy system for younger members – please get in touch with Jonathan Powe (h 76), the Hon Secretary, at jonathanpowe56@gmail.comif you are interested. I would particularly urge all of this year’s leavers to consider becoming a Pilgrim if you haven’t done so already. It is an outstanding way of keeping in touch with your peers and meeting new OS friends, as well as enjoying some often surprisingly competitive matches.

In the absence of action, I will suggest a book for your Christmas stocking. In October, a book called Puddings, Bullies & Squashes was published. It is a collection of essays about the emergence of what we now call football and rugby into codified form, drawing on the different strands of football played – often remarkably creatively – at 20 schools in England, Scotland and Ireland. Sherborne is one of them. If you can bear to read more of my prose, the easiest way to get hold of it is via Amazon. I hope the unusual title will make it easy to find by the search function – it is edited by Malcolm Tozer (no relation, we believe, of Bob).

I’ll whet your appetite with a question. What is the link between Sherborne School and the Bledisloe Cup, played for between Australia and New Zealand’s rugby union teams? The answer is in the book.

Cricket

With COVID-19having threatened to decimate the entire Sherborne Pilgrims Cricket season, we were very grateful to be able to schedule six fixtures at the end of August. Although two of these were rained off, the other four produced some very memorable cricket and a lot of long-awaited fun. As it so happens, the Pilgrims won each of these four matches, resulting in a winning season, albeit a truncated one, for the first time in many a year.

The season began in mid-August against Marlborough Blues at Sherborne Town CC. Playing on a wicket that had seen 100 overs of cricket in 30 degree heat the previous day, meant that it was not one for the batsmen, but the challenging surface produced a cracking game, at the end of which Marlborough needed 3 to win from the final ball – a 2 saw the Pilgrims win by just 1 run and memorable finale!

In lieu of the traditional Cricket Week, a ‘Mini-week’ was organised for the end of August that, following on from the Marlborough fixture, produced some fantastic and enjoyable cricket with the two matches permitted by the weather both being won by the Pilgrims: a T20 victory against Sherborne Town CC, including a debut 100 for Luke McLaughlin (c 20), and a debut fixture for the Pilgrims against the Free Foresters. The latter fixture produced a particularly climactic finish with the Pilgrims requiring five runs to win from the final over while 8 wickets down – a Ben Lyons (c 07) six finished things off in emphatic fashion. While the adverse impact of COVID-19 on our cricket calendar was frustrating, such a period of isolation and disconnection between the Pilgrims brought into focus the importance of the Club and our appreciation for it – seeing a group of Old Shirburnians getting together again after such a long period apart was special.

Cross Country

There has been very little collective racing or training in 2020 due to COVID-19so running has been an even more solitary affair than usual. The Alumni team at Thames Hare and Hounds organized a series of virtual 5Ks at the beginning of lockdown, using the very efficient Opentrack, but the annual Alumni race on Wimbledon Common only happened for a few of us. The rest did their five miles wherever they happened to be over the weekend of 12/13 December.

Tim Love (b 80) and I started outside the Thames clubhouse on a typically grey December afternoon and were soon parted –Tim being faster. He ran the traditional course and I got lost, but due to the wonders of Garmin was able to keep track of my mileage and finished somewhere near the start, having completed a rather slow and muddy 5 miles. Tim had to run around the playing fields again having only completed 4.7 miles.

The Sherborne numbers were well down on a normal year and, at the time of writing, it is not known where the team finished overall. 284 runners submitted times to Opentrack.

The results were: 1. Morewood (RGS, Guildford) 25.03 27. Harry Reynolds (e 16) 31.37 33. Sam Reynolds (c 20) 32.15 45. Peter Woodburn (b 85) 33.32 (1st over 50) 90. Tim Pearce (e 92) 36.36 109. Edward Benbow (e 97) 37.31 112. Lloyd Collier (d 90) 37.35 216. Tim Love (b 80) 44.15 271. Angus Cater (c 70) 55.16

It is hoped that normal service will be resumed next year with the Sherborne Trophy, the Hyde Park Relays, and the Alumni race in December. If interested please join the Pilgrim XC site on Facebook.

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Hockey

The Pilgrims Hockey Team has not had the most fruitful of years due to the Pandemic, with sadly much less activity than we had hoped for. We had our annual fixture against the School on 2 February, which was great for so many of us to be back on the Hughie Holmes. It’s also a really good opportunity for recent leavers to see how hockey can continue after school with the old boys’ network.

For the first year, we are also part of an old boys mini tournament featuring five other schools, with fixtures taking place throughout the year in London. We were sitting nicely around mid-table, with two games to play before activity was officially suspended due to COVID-19.

We hope to get back on the pitch towards the end of 2020 and are feeling hopeful with new leavers coming into the fold we can continue to be a strong force to take on other old boys’ teams. WILL SMIBERT (a 09)

OSGS

The OSGS is open to all Old Shirburnians regardless of age or golfing prowess! Founded in 1929 we are a thriving convivial Society with approx. 200 playing members, of whom 85 (42%) are aged Under-27.

We maintain close links with the School, on average 12-14 leavers join our ranks each year and begin to enjoy the financial subsidies and a wide range of golfing opportunities. We have built up possibly the fullest fixture lists of all Old Boys Golfing Societies and we play at some of the finest golf clubs in the country including: Aldeburgh, Ashridge, The Berkshire, Burnham & Berrow, New Zealand, Rye, Sandwich, Saunton, Sunningdale, West Sussex, Woking and Woodbridge.

We are keen to attract new members especially those OS at the younger end of the spectrum. The OSGS provides generous subsidies for young members: • Those under 27 pay a maximum of £30 per day for any match/meeting which includes all green fees and lunch/ catering costs (approx discount of 75%). • Those 27-32 years of age pay a maximum of £60 per day (approx discount of 50%).

We usually contest 23 matches annually against other school societies and golf clubs. Most matches are 8-10 man teams playing 2x18 hole foursomes with an excellent 3-course lunch and refreshments in between. These offer a great opportunity to catch up with your friends and renew old sporting rivalries. Unfortunately, this year due to COVID-19 and also some poor weather we have only been able to play five matches (winning four and losing just one).

We usually hold three Meetings a year: at Sherborne GC in May, The Berkshire in June, and Rye GC in September. All great fun and popular events with sumptuous lunches, historic silver trophies and numerous prizes. This year COVID-19ruled out the Sherborne meeting, but 25 OSGS members played at the Berkshire Meeting (delayed to 11 September) and 12 members played at Rye on 26 September). Both events ran safely and were thoroughly enjoyed by all!

The Society usually enters a scratch team in several tournaments: the Halford Hewitt, Grafton Morrish, Brent Knoll Bowl, GL MellinSalver (O-55s), Peter Burles Salver (O-65s), Bunny Millard Salver (O-75s) and the Alba Trophy. Regrettably, none were played this year due to COVID-19.

Paddy Macintosh (h 80) was OSGS Captain during 2018/19 and Jonathan Godfrey (d 99) has taken up the mantle for 2020/21.

We are all looking forward to the 2021 fixtures and are hoping that we are all free and safe to play more golf.

For more information and our fixture list see the OSGS website: https://osgs.wildapricot.org or contact me tgglaw@aol.com Mob 07767 007495.

TERRY GORDON (h 78)

OSSS

On the 15 March Old Shirburnian Sailors met the current School on a cold crisp day at Queen Mary’s Reservoir. The teams were competing in J80s with fierce competition between the boats. The boys, schooled by Mr Ewart-Smith, did an excellent job of keeping things even with the more experienced OSS team. The wind stayed fair and it ended in a draw, we look forward to attempting this event in 2021, conditions permitting. Little did we realise at the time that this was to be the last physical event prior to lockdown...

So, what do we do with the “lockdown” sailors?

As lockdown started to bite it was clear that the Old Shirburnian Sailors were getting cabin fever, having been banned from their boats. They were unable to keep their skills honed and have a drink with their sailing buddies.

The OSS virtual Stanger-Leathes was the answer (Stanger-Leathes is the series of regular sailing matches between Old Shirburnian Sailing and the School). We set up a series of virtual races running on Wednesday evenings throughout lockdown using Virtual Regatta Inshore (free to download). We had fleets of up to 16 Old Shirburnians competing over nine weeks, with a range of young guns and wily foxes on the helms. For added variety, team racing matches were set up with the School as well as Oundle.

The racing gave a good opportunity for all to hone strategy and tactics from the comfort of home or, as restrictions changed, in gardens or onboard yachts! Racing was 10 minute one-design races from the single person Laser dinghy all the way up to the F50’s which were foiling catamarans used in the last America’s Cup.

Racing was incredibly close, with battles throughout the fleet, wind shifts adjusting places and some charming sledging delivered across the video conference. Usually it isn’t possible to talk to other competitors during racing so this really opened up some interesting dynamics. It also opened up the option for quick tactical debriefs after the race and while there were automatic penalties for collisions there was no repair cost involved so some risky tactical options could be tried from the safety of home! Big thanks go to James (e 09) and Jemima Edwards for keeping score. Andrew Morley-Smith (e 02) for assisting with IT; our Commodore Angus Cater (c 70) for proving anyone can use the technology; Tak Kaneko (m 96) joining us from the Netherlands and John Archer (c 96) joining us from Switzerland.

Following the success of the OSS virtual Stanger-Leathes sailing series, we are running a 2020 winter series, as well as assessing a calendar of events for 2021. If you’d be interested in taking part in the winter series, please contact Robert Gosling (goslingrobert@gmail.com). If you would like further information on joining The Old Shirburnian Sailing Society visit our website osss.org.uk.

ROBERT GOSLING (a 01)