To make a donation click here 
Above are some images of the current development for more images click here
Rugby Fives at Rugby School


Exciting news - and an antidote to all the gloom surrounding times of recession and cut-backs.

Not only have we reached our ambitious target of £200k for the new Fives Courts at the School but the digging and laying out of the site is about to begin.  Because a fairly long drying our period is required for the floor and walls once completed, we doubt if they will be ready for play until the September Term, 2010, but we are all thrilled to think that our game will be played again, and this time by girls as well as boys!  For those of you who still have children or grandchildren at the School (as I do), this is a tonic but for all who have been so amazingly generous it is a just reward and inspiration.

Over 300 ORs, parents and Fives players (and not just the Rugby version) have banded together in a wonderful spirit of bonhomie to bring us to our target.  Court games, clubs and organisations have joined in and the final hurdle has been cleared with a magnificent donation of £10,000 by the Rugby Fives Association Trust.  Donations of all sizes have continued to pour in and at this stage it would be invidious to single out particular donors.  However I feel I must acknowledge my personal debt to two people who have encouraged and inspired me ever since the project was a distant hope.  Kerry Wilson, the School's Development Director, has been a wonderful worker for 'the cause' throughout and Dick Warner (now appropriately the Vice-President of the Rugby Fives Association), must be mentioned not only for his tireless work culminating in his triumphant Crick Run at 57 but for his weekly support and cheerful banter!  His Run alone brought him sponsorship of £10,000 and without him I simply would not have got off the ground.

Other special donors will be fully acknowledged in due course and, especially, when we hold our celebratory party at the School next year.  We are planning the 'christening' of the courts next September and I might put a glove on myself, though whether I could reach the front wall remains to be seen!  But be assured that you will be invited, as well every single individual who has contributed, however large or small their donation.

This has been a triumph of generosity, cooperation and camaraderie over the demons of doubt and pessimism.  Thank you so much and here's to next September!

For some photographs on how the development is progressing click here.

John Evans
December 2009
Former Housemaster (K 73-81)