House Reports

House Championships

Peter Morgan writes:

Each school year the four houses fought for the House Championship, itself composed of 23 events ranging from drama and music to rugby and athletics. In theory, the distribution of first formers into the four houses should have provided relatively equal teams over such a variety of events. The facts seem to suggest otherwise.

Abbots won 12 out of the 24 championships between 1955 and 1979 with Kings winning just one (1966/7). Between 1966 and 1970 each house won the championship once. Only once has the championship been tied: Kevere and Bec in 1970.

Some events seem to have been dominated for long spells by one house. One explanation for this is that for certain periods, houses used to get the new boys from certain primary schools. If one of those schools excelled at a certain sport it is natural to assume that the house to which its pupils were allocated would do likewise.

The most prolific case of one house dominating a certain event is Abbots stranglehold over the swimming galas. From 1967 to 1979 (no gala in 1972) Abbots won 11 out of 12.

Abbots also won the middle rugby for six consecutive years in the late 60's early 70's. Kevere won the senior rugby for eight of the 12 years prior to 1979 and are the only house to have won all three cross-country events in the same year.

Abbots is the only house to have won all three rugby competitions in the same year (1972) and in 1977 and 1978 they won all three swimming age-groups - the only house to have done so. No house ever won all three cricket competitions outright, although in 1971 Kevere won the junior and senior events, tying the middle cricket with Abbots and Kings.

Bec generally did well in the music competitions and, with Kings, dominated the cross-country in the late seventies. Kings also did well in the chess competition and won the badminton competition five years running in the late sixties. They also dominated the house squash competition - although this was only held once, in 1979!

Sadly, some events failed to survive the lifetime of the school; gymnastics, tennis, hockey and even poetry recitals fell by the wayside.