Once echoing sharp smacks of leather against plaster, the Fives Courts now sit quietly, repurposed as storage space. Nevertheless, decades ago, this forgotten corner of campus resounded with loud cheers and fierce competition. A unique tradition—Fives—was at the heart of Groton.
Originally from England, there are three types of fives games: Eton fives, Rugby fives, and Winchester fives. Rugby fives is the most popular out of the three, and it is also the game Groton played.
The rules of Rugby fives resemble those of handball or squash. Within a court enclosed on four sides with composition walls and floors, each player wears special gloves (similar to baseball) on both hands. These courts resemble today’s squash courts, only the sidewalls decrease in height—from 15 feet to 6 feet. With usually two or four players participating in the game, they take turns hitting the hard leather ball against the front wall using their hand. The opponents must return the ball before it bounces twice, and matches are played to either eleven or fifteen points
“It was a popular activity,” said Dr. Black. Fives was a crucial addition to the Groton-St. Mark’s rivalry back in the day, and an exciting annual tournament between Groton and St. Mark’s brought a great crowd of both students and teachers. Both schools assembled the most competitive team of their own, wishing to win the tournament as school honor. Students who were not Fives athletes would cheer their schoolmates on, watching the tournament attentively and waiting for the victory from their own school. For spectators, the game is amusing, as opponents often seem to be in each others’ ways but still manage to hit the unexpected ball rebounds. As fives was only popularized between Groton and St. Mark’s (no other schools in North America participated in this game), even if we lost to St. Mark’s, we were still able to proudly say that Groton is second in North America for fives.
Unfortunately, as the walls were easily damaged and the equipment became too costly to be bought from the United Kingdom, this sport gradually lost its popularity. In 2001, St. Mark’s took down their courts while rearranging their campus. Subsequently, Groton’s Fives courts are also turned into a storage area and more widely known as the green-donate thrift store.
While Fives may no longer exist in the courts of Groton anymore, its legacy remains a fascinating piece of the school’s history—one that alumni would fondly recall. Though the game has faded in the present, its spirit lives on in the school’s athletic traditions. Dr. Black, an avid squash player, expressed, “I do think that it would be a great thing to bring back [fives] as an intramural sport.” A quick search may bring us to more suppliers from the UK. Who knows? Perhaps one day, a new generation of Groton students will revive this lost sport, once again challenging St. Mark’s and bringing fives back to its former glory.
