OW Hockey Festival

09/03/2023

We had a great day at the OW Hockey Festival. There was a brilliant turnout from Old Westbournians with over 50 players - mainly from recent leavers - years 9 to 13, but including a few older OWs, trying to keep up with the pace. We mixed up the years into eight teams and had a series of very close pool games and then some nail-biting play offs. The standard of hockey was extremely high, with a number of 1st team and representative players showing off their skills, and plenty of old patrol and family rivalries playing out on the Astro.

The teams and spectators were well fuelled with bacon butties and drinks - thanks to the team at Westbourne House for putting that all together.

The final was a close-fought affair, with normal time ending in a 3-3 draw, leading to penalty flicks to determine the winner. It was Barker's Bashers who managed to beat the goalie and come away the festival winners! Many congrats to Laura Hantrais, Isabel Aston, Juliette Franks (all now PGS 1st XI team), George Baker, Simon Howell (OWP), Jonathan Sutton and Jiayou Li from the winning team.

winning team

Prizes were also awarded to MVPs from every team (below).

Thank you to everyone who came for this fun-filled day of hockey, which will continue to be an annual spring event. It was so lovely to see so many OWs back on site, including two of our old headmasters. We can't wait for the OW Tennis and Cricket in the summer term! Keep 11 June free! For information on these events please join our Spond group. Download the Spond app to your phone, then open the following link to join: https://group.spond.com/WGCAR. Alternatively, look out for updates in our OW emails and social channels:

www.facebook.com/old.westbournian

http://www.instagram.com/westbournehouseschool

I’m so glad I was able to make it to the gathering on Sunday. I was honoured that one of the teams was named after me!

Stephen Rigby, former headmaster