Oakham School are national croquet champions!

Published by Oakham School on Friday 27th of June 2014

Pupils from Oakham School have triumphed at the National Schools Croquet Championship, with their two teams taking first and second place. As well as sweeping up the doubles prizes, team member Liam Payne also emerged as the victor at the National Junior Croquet Championship, held on the same day.

Anthony Morris, Charlie Schanschieff, Austin Steele and Liam Payne, who are all in the Fifth Form, travelled to Bristol to take part. The championship kicked off with the doubles competition. After some closely fought matches, it resulted in an Oakham-Oakham match for first and second place. Liam and Charlie quickly saw to it that they emerged as the champions, making them the premier doubles team, and placing Anthony and Austin second.

After lunch, the students then played in the singles tournament. This consisted of a number of knockout rounds leading to a final match. 'Unfortunately, both Charlie and Anthony encountered extremely tough opposition in their early matches,' writes Austin Steel. 'As a result Charlie was beaten in his first match, and Anthony was beaten in his second match. This resulted in Charlie finishing 7th and Anthony finishing 6th. I was eventually knocked out in the semi-finals, leaving me to play for third place, which I managed to win. Liam, however, progressed to the final of the singles and in an extremely tactical match, he was able to emerge as the victor.' This gave Oakham a finishing tally of 1st place, 3rd place, 6th place and 7th place. All of which counted to the School emerging as the overall victors of the championship and, therefore, winning the accolade of best croquet school in the country.