The wonderful and historical game of Fives

One of the Fives Courts at Shrewsbury School today.

FIVES

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1925) describes fives as a ball game played with hands or bat in court with two, three or four walls. The name may be derived from the slang expression "a bunch of fives" (meaning a fist). The game has also been known as hand-tennis and historically was often played between the buttresses of church buildings in England. There are links between Fives and the Irish, Welsh and North American handball games. In recent years, British clubs began to establish ties with clubs in those countries.

Eton Fives

Eton Fives, invented by Eton boys in 1877, is played competitively as a doubles game. In Eton Fives the ball is slightly softer and lighter than other versions of the game and the gloves are fairly thin.

The Eton Fives court is modelled on part of Eton College's Chapel and is enclosed on three sides and open at the back. It has a more complex variation and some specific court features or "hazards". A small step splits the court into upper and lower sections, and sloping ledges run horizontally across the walls, one of which forms the "line". There is a large obstruction, known as a 'buttress', or a 'pepper' to fives players, on the left-hand side of the court in line with the step. At the bottom of the buttress is the 'box' or 'pepper pot'. The step extends approximately 80 cm into the court and is around 15 cm high. The first courts at Eton were built in 1840, and subsequently at a multitude of other locations, and the Laws for Eton Fives were first published in 1931.

The first Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Match was played in 1928, with a Ladies' Varsity Match following in 2007.

Players

Fives is a small sport played by groups and enthusiasts numbering perhaps 4,000 active adult players in the United Kingdom and there are a number of Old Boys' and university clubs which tend to be concentrated around the South East. There are of course many other clubs around the country including Midlands clubs such as Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Rugby, Repton and Shrewsbury.

A similar number play in schools. About forty schools are affiliated to the Eton Fives Association (the governing body of the Eton Fives variation) and compete in many tournaments and championship events throughout the year.

There are some well-established clubs overseas, such as the Zuoz Fives Club in Zurich, Switzerland, and the game is also vigorously pursued in Nigeria where it is played by a cross-section of the population, especially in the north of the country. The game was introduced to Nigeria by an Old Etonian teacher, J. S. Hogden, who was working in the northern towns of Katsina and Birnin Kebbi in 1928. It is generally played using a tennis ball in the country after Hogden realised that the traditional harder ball "took chunks out of the mud walls of the courts". A tour of northern Nigeria was carried out by players from the Eton Fives Association in 1965.

The Rugby Fives Association (the governing body of Rugby Fives, founded in 1927) has affiliations from over forty schools and thirty-two clubs, from Edinburgh to Tavistock, and there are also a number of clubs overseas, for example in South Africa and the United States.