Badminton, Squash, Tennis 05

Badminton fixtures were given a shot in the arm this year by the formation of the West London Schools League, in which nine local schools competed against each other for a shield. The deserving winners for the first year were Watford G.S.

St. Nicholas finished fourth. We found ourselves very much in a class of our own in that we were easily beaten by the top three schools, Watford, High Wycombe and Langley, whilst most of the others were no match for us.

The top pair, Smith, the Captain, and Summerhayes, always gave a good account of themselves and were rarely easily beaten. Both, however, were too inaccurate overhead to be really formidable. Murless improved rapidly during the season and was very competent all round the court by the end: Parish will improve his game only when he rids himself of his obsession with the drop shot. Bottoms has many good shots but spoils his game by a cavalier disregard for basic positional play whilst T. Smith, only a third-former, showed great promise once he had recovered from his initial nervousness about playing with and against more senior boys.

G. SMITH, U.6