St Edward's 150 Years - by Nicola Hunter

St Edward’s: 150 Years

Chapter 7 / Sport and Outdoors

Below:‘Gymn’shield from the archive. It was presented by the tutors in 1897 andhotly contested. Its coppermini shields round the edge are not inscribed afer1938.Thefollowingshieldhastheyear1939onit,butitandtheremaining shields lie completely empty, for obvious reasons.

Left: Senior Girls 4x100m (left to right): N. Hattingh, L. Skull, A. Charlton, B. Burt – 2008 Achilles Relays Team Silver Medalists.

Left: Tennis, 1898. Below left: Girls playing in the indoor courts on a surface akin to grass with none of its downsides. Below right: PT squad, 1928.

In 1952 the first School Harriers race took place, commencing an ongoing platform for the long-distance runners whose performances became of a very high standard in the early 1960s, when the School won the Parrish Cup three times in a row, creating a new record at the same time. Teddies won it again in 1974. In 1966 the School’s Athletics Squad and the Harrier team were unbeaten throughout the season. In 1968 the School won the National Public Schools 4x110-yard relay at Iffley Road for the first time. In the 1970s the School’s athletes were dominant in their competitions, and 39 School all-time records were established. In 1978 the School won the Achilles Road-Relay Race at Iffley Road for the first time. With coeducation there were boys-only and girls-only athletic squads as well as mixed teams. In 1991 a girl pupil, Anne Klusmann, was included in the School’s Harrier team as she was so good. Four years later the School’s mixed teams won both the Junior and Intermediate Oxford City Athletic events. A complete record of all the individual and team athletic records for boys has been meticulously kept to this day. The girls’ equivalent is at present being put together. In recent years it has become usual for 80 to 100 boys and girls from the Fourth to the Sixth Form to choose to participate in athletics as their games option in the summer term. The athletes travel to the Sir Roger Bannister Stadium at Iffley Road to train and their efforts are duly rewarded on the track and in the field when it comes to match day. The athletics team

by J.K. Watkins, a fanatical fitness teacher of the times, and well supported by Warden Simeon, to have a fully equipped Gymnasium built, and its use by all pupils was to be compulsory. Supported by financial help from parents and others, the Gymnasium was built in 1886, and a qualified instructor, Mr Adams, was hired to take care of the facility and to train the boys. His fearsome reputation was to grow over the years! The first steeplechase as part of the Sports Day was run in 1888 and has continued until the present day. In 1894 the School entered the prestigious Public Schools Challenge Shield at Aldershot and would continue to do so for many years. A year later a Sports Cup was presented for athletic achievement by former Warden Hobson, for personal as well as Tutorial Set achievement. In 1897 the existing Set Tutors themselves presented the PT Shield for gymnastics excellence, although from 1918 this was awarded for PT only. In 1908, Wilfred Bleaden became the first OSE to take part in the Olympic Games held in London. He participated in the

long jump. He was followed by J.H.R. Freeborn in the 1914 Paris Olympics in the Hammer Throw. The first OSE Oxford Athletics Blue was H.S. Chessire in 1880 and for Cambridge H.St.A. Lowe in 1896. It was not until 1927 that the first Athletics Match was held against another school, when Bromsgrove School were the visitors, and in 1929 the first Standards Cup was introduced,

involving all boys and not just the most able, with individual performance against given standards scored and counting towards the House totals. The fitness of the School continued to be a high priority and was visibly demonstrated further by the winning of the highly prestigious Public Schools’ PT Shield at Tidworth Pennings Summer Camp led by C.S.M. Merry in 1928. Athletics had now become the principal sporting activity in the Spring term even after hockey was first taken seriously in 1930. Matches against other schools and even elite runners from the University became commonplace, with the School’s own Sports Days and the Standards Cup the high points, not forgetting the mandatory daily mass PT undertaken in front of the cricket pavilion all through the year.

Above: Mass display at Gaudy, 1954. Right: G. Blanchard – Inter Girls Javelin, 100m and Long Jump 2013; County Champion 2012.

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