Filippo Variola reports:

Click on the thumbnail to see photos from the tournament and of the Geneva Rugby Fives court

The 2010 Geneva Fives Tournament was played this year in Zürich at the Zuoz Fives Club Zürich to reduce the travelling distance for the players coming from the Lyceum in Zuoz.

The weather on that September week-end was not great, to say the least: we had pouring rain from Saturday morning until Sunday early afternoon, which did not prevent us from having a great time, lots of fun and a wonderful tournament.

Daniel Häring, President of the Zuoz Fives Club Zürich, did not just organise all the barbecues, but also looked after us all with a lot of attention and we thank him once more for that.

The following players came from the Zuoz Club: Dieter Büchi, Alex Edelmann, Michael Gumuchdijan, Daniel Häring, Nicholas Oechsle, Benny Oei, Curt Schmitt, Chris Tanner and myself; from the Lyceum Alpinum: Marc Aman, Christine Beck, Renato Büchi, Sophia Florineth, Artem Glebovskiy, Kevin Michaelsen, Mariya Onipchenko, Jessica Rees, Marc Tavra, Janis Vetsch and Tom Witherow.

The playing standard was very high, congratulations to all the participants and the Winner’s Cup went to Chris Tanner and Tom Witherow.

The 2011 Tournament will take place in Veigy, near Geneva, on June 11 and 12.

The Geneva Club has also made its first forays into the world of Rugby Fives. After reading in our Fives Annual Review the article concerning the newly built Rugby Fives Courts near Geneva, I contacted Angus Hanton to know when he was planing to come to Switzerland so that we could get together.

On 17th November Erkki Tammivuori, an Eton Fives player from the Geneva Fives Club and myself drove to Granges-sous-Trey to meet Angus and to play a few games of this to us unknown game.

Angus gave us a wonderful welcome, we enjoyed the game and we were invited for a delicious lunch by the Hanton Family.

My feeling was that Rugby Fives is faster and more demanding than Eton Fives; when I mentioned this to John Reynolds, he commented that "there is plenty of scope for discussion there!"