Schools & Colleges W
hitgift is very much a school where results count and get recognised. It is the only school in Britain to win national titles in all four of
the major team sports - rugby, football, hockey and cricket. For two consecutive years it has won the Independent Schools Award in the Daily Telegraph’s School Sport Matters. Its rugby first XV recently won the National Schools Under-18 Cup, again for a second consecutive year, and all Whitgift eyes will be on Lawrence Okoye who, in a GB vest, has a real chance of an Olympic medal in the discus. He’s already knotched up the best throw in the world this year, and he even has his own training circle in the school grounds. Whitgift has always taken its sport very seriously. Nowadays, it is taking its
pitches just that bit more seriously too. It has spent about £500,000 on them in the last couple of years. Its links with Surrey County Cricket Club as a major outground away from the Oval is well known in the game. Last year, as well as a county championship match against Essex and a CB40 game against the Hampshire Hawks in May, Whitgift’s Northfield, which can host up to 5000 spectators, staged its first Twenty20 encounter. Surrey took on Sussex in front of Sky TV cameras, and Stuart Webber, at the school less than a year as Head Goundsman, says it was perhaps the most nerve racking yet exhilarating day of his career. “The Kia Oval leave pitch work pretty much to us at the school,” says Stuart. “They had a quick look at the pitch prior to the four day game, but left us on our
own for the Twenty20. We knew we had to cut the strip just that bit shorter than for a championship match, because the demand is for a fast, hard track, a batsman-friendly one, so we did.” This was life in the fast lane for the
twenty-six year old, starting work at 4.30am and having to contend with camera crews, the wires and all their kit getting in the way of pitch work. “The first ball was struck for six, out of
the ground,” Stuart recalls. “We’d done our job and the crowd loved it. Surrey won, too.”
“I’m a winter games and pitches man at heart but, in the short time I’ve been at the school, I’ve grown to love cricket and the work involved.” This year, there is a break from Surrey
cricket at Whitgift because of building work on a new boarding house close to
“I’m a winter games and pitches man at heart but, in the short time I’ve been at the school, I’ve grown to love cricket and the work involved”
JUNE/JULY 2012 PC 93
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