The St David's festival was a good way to see the new season in

 

So, the 2023 winter schools sport season is over, and the quite spectacular St David’s Challenge Cup soccer tournament saw the new one in last weekend.

The standard of play, someone who knows the game far better that I do said, wasn’t as high as it has been in some years, but the sheer size of the thing, the number of boys involved, the number of games they played and the quality of the organisation: the fields, officiating, catering, and the updating of the tournament standings as we went along, were outstanding.

I’ve been to lots of these things over the years, including those run by Sasfa – the schools football association that was part of SAFA, until they were kicked out because of a dispute between the bodies over funding and sponsorship - and I’d say this was a good as it could possibly be.

The event doubled in size this year with the introduction of under-14 and under-16 sections, played at St Stithians. It was a separate tournament, although it is also called the Challenge Cup, and there is some co-ordination – the idea is that the participating schools will send teams to all four competitions, making it more of a mass participation event.

One significant difference, I thought, was that both the competitions at Saints were played as full on tournaments with cross pool playoffs, quarterfinals, semis and a final. At St David’s the U15 section was a festival. There was a division into a top eight and a bottom eight after the first rounds of games, but they then played another round-robin, with no consequences.

There was an under-15 winner at St David’s up until last year but it has been changed, I was told, on request from the headmasters of the boys schools, who don’t want U14s and 15s, who are still learning to play the game, to participate in any kind of league.

That’s why the U14 basketball and water polo tournaments that round off the 1^st term are festivals now, without winners. I’m not sure why the U14s at Saints played for a cup, they shouldn’t have.

That said, the Grade 8s, fresh out of primary school where football was the game they played, were given ample opportunity to keep on playing it – that hasn’t always been the case.

So, it’s football for the next few weeks, with the cricketers already starting to loosen up – I’ll be back at St David’s in two weeks time for the excellent Fasken Two-Day Festival, more about that later.

What we won’t be seeing is school athletics, not at the boys schools anyway. I find it strange and uncharacteristic that they seem to have capitulated on that one. I’m sure they have their reasons and I know the really serious athletes compete in more structured competitions in the first term now. But what about the others?

My experience is that there are those who aren’t much good at some of the events, but who bust a gut at them anyway. I’m going to miss watching that stoutly-built youngster who doesn’t belong anywhere near the 1500m, giving it his all to finish and earn a point for his school. And to hear the applause he gets when he comes down the straight a minute behind the winner. There used to be lessons taught and learnt that way too.