Jesters vs Fitzwilliam Club (Dublin) 8-9th March 2024 – report by Laura Neill
On Friday 8th and Saturday 9th of March, the Jesters hosted the Fitzwilliam club from Dublin. The last time this fixture happened was 2020, so it was great to get it back onto the calendar. The first night featured a 6-a-side match at The Oxford and Cambridge Club – kindly arranged by Dave Phillips who was unable to play himself, as it was decided that playing with a cracked rib was less than ideal.
Fitz had brought a strong side and got off to a solid start, with Ciaran McCoy defeating Bitcoin Dave (also known as David Simpson) 3/0. Having used the power that comes with being match manager to put herself at last string, Laura Neill then lost 14-12 in the fifth after being outlasted by Ronan Campbell, who runs up mountains for “fun”. Alex Portz went up next at second string, winning 3/1 against Conor O’Hare to get the Jesters on the scoreboard. Colin Tierney, still recovering from an earlier virus, lost 3/0 to Andrew O’Connor despite starting each game well. This was followed by a 3/0 win from last minute step-in, Rufus Hawkings, against the Fitz captain, Dara O’Flynn, with an average game score of 11-9.
This meant with one match to go, Fitz were leading 3-2. For the first-string match, the Jesters wheeled out a stalwart of Irish Squash, Stevie Richardson, to play against Alex Smith. After a closely fought battle, the final score was 3/1 to Smith.
So, in true Jesterly fashion, we gave our guests a 4-2 win on the squash courts. We then progressed to the far more important part of the evening, with dinner in the O&C’s Blomfield Room preceding drinks in Soho. Being a match manager includes various responsibilities, but Laura did not anticipate having to ban Bitcoin chat at dinner being one of them.
On the Saturday, we were playing at The Hurlingham Club, with thanks to Paul Lubbock for his help arranging the courts. We began a little after noon, in the hopes it would give sufficient recovery time from the night before. With Stevie unavailable, as a consequence of needing to get some drinks in before watching the rugby from a no-alcohol section of Twickenham, we started with a first-string match of Alex vs. Alex. In the first five-setter of the day, the Irish Alex won in the fifth. Meanwhile, Dara was taking on another last-minute step-in, Tom Trott. It took a somewhat concerning amount of time for the pair to notice they were playing with a 17-inch tin. Tom won a tight 3/0 match to bring the overall score to 1-1. Rufus showed his commitment to the Jesters by coming to play after an incredibly early game of golf, unfortunately losing 3/0 to Conor.
At the lower end of the order, we swapped people around to give the guests an opportunity to take on different players. Dave and Colin both had tough 3/0 defeats against Ronan and Ciaran, respectively. Finally, Laura maximised her court time and ended up on the right side of a 3/2 match against Andrew (although her lack of hangover from the night before may have been the advantage). This meant Saturday’s match finished up with an identical score of 4-2 to Fitz.
Those of us who did not have tickets to the match went to a pub to watch the rugby together. In case it was not apparent from the surnames, the Jesters match manager tried to include as many London-based Irish players as possible. This meant the Irish were outnumbering the English and could share the trauma of that last minute loss, making it marginally less painful.
To bring the night to a close, we went to Queen’s for a joint dinner with the older Fitz team and the GB Vets – who were competing against each other at the same time. There were also supposed to be some tennis teams in attendance, but they had to fly back earlier and missed the best part of the weekend.
Speeches were made by all the captains, as well as Robert Dolman who had kindly arranged the Queen’s dinner for everyone. Outside the speeches, Colin had lost his voice so badly that half the time his teammates did not notice he was even talking. Andrew ended up stretching out a skort which he had to wear following his loss against Laura. Dave was warned about his Bitcoin chat – again. The match manager decided that MVP should be awarded to the most supportive and best-looking participant over the weekend – meaning Paul’s Labrador, Barney, won by a landslide.