10 Sports in 10 hours - the full rundown from the All Night Sports Marathon

A total of 32 athletes took to the gym at 9pm after the first half of Lent term for the All Night Sports Marathon.  

The marathon saw pupils take on a different sport over 10 hours in order to raise money for our chosen international charity, Restart Africa.  

The rules (the word here being used more loosely than perhaps most readers would interpret) of the evening were laid out. Each sport was to be played for an hour and would produce a ranking of the four teams. 5, 3, 2 and 1 points would be awarded to the teams depending on their position in that hour. Any team might say in advance they were playing their joker, doubling their points for that hour. 

Basketball 9 – 10pm 

George H (O, UVI) takes an early lead (despite some enthusiastic rivalry from Theo D (SH, V)) in the competition of his own making: falling over in artistic and entertaining ways. He somehow managed to fall over the ball, the floor and himself all at once. An arresting performance. 

Ethan W (SH, V) and Sophie W (EDH, LVI) were our proper referees. 

Cycling 10 – 11pm 

Very dubious decisions by PAK led to Mr Brogan being kicked out of the square for being too competitive. ATB was fuming! No-one had told him that ramming wasn’t allowed. Felix R (S, UVI) put in a similarly robust challenge, but to George H’s primacy.  

Hockey 11pm - midnight 

Dr Barrett appeared, refereed and played at the same time, bringing wins for the Marauders after an initial lean spell. Gabby T (G, UVI) and Kevin H (S, UVI) put in separate, independent and strong bids to be named most overtly competitive. 

Cricket midnight - 1am 

Variable – and that’s not just the bounce. There were sixes; there were astonishing reflex catches taken by the unusual but highly effective technique of folding the body in half as ball met belly; there were one-handed running efforts on the boundary, …   

Badminton 1 – 2am 

Brogan’s Buccaneers played their joker instantly. And won the hour. They were annoyingly competent; it was almost unseemly; I considered changing the rules. 

Netball 2 – 3am 

This claimed the first (and only significant) victim of the evening. In the warm-up. Sadly there are no recordings available of the reactions of the doctors and nurses at A&E at 3 or 4am, speaking to Mr Morris about his dislocated finger: 
“How did you do this?” 
“Playing netball.” 
“This afternoon?” 
“No, about an hour and a half ago.” 

Presumably he was seen so quickly because they recognised he was several winks short of a full sleep cycle and wanted to get him out of there. He made it back for the 7am photo. 

Football 3 – 4am 

A few relieved faces: a sport they recognised and which therefore didn’t require concentration on questions such as: where they were allowed to stand; what to do when they inadvertently found themselves with the ball; how to stand up (Theo D, again, forgot, but still not as stylishly as George H.). 

Volleyball 4 – 5am 

This hour hit the perfect intersection between fatigue and lack of familiarity with the sport. Enthusiasm remained pretty good but anyone who has watched any level of volleyball might have struggled to recognise the sport in our efforts.  

Dodgeball 5 – 6am 

We had been looking forward to this for some time. Weeks, in my case. It is perfectly suited to this final spot of the evening for its almost total lack of structure, which was accentuated by changes I made to the rules when things didn’t seem quite mad enough.  

Yoga 6 – 7am 

Thanks to Dr Brown, a full athlete’s warm-down and stretching session closed the evening.  

Mr Morris returned from A&E with his finger back where it belonged, just in time to gatecrash the survivors’ photograph and to find that his team had finished just two points away from 2nd place. 

My enormous thanks go to: 

• Mr Brogan, who managed all night also ensuring that none of the students was the most furiously competitive player out there. 
• Mr Morris, for attempting to take part in the full night.  
• Mr Murray, for many hours of organisation before the event and driving the fundraising efforts as well as being around for hours at the start and end. 
• Mr Cowper for constant enthusiasm, advice and plenty of hours of the evening, who stayed on site and on call when we lost a team captain. 
• Joss G (S, UVI) for coming along to the start and end despite his broken leg. 
• Dr Barrett for coming in to run hockey, play cricket, be sledged and remain cheerful. 
• Mr Kaye, plus hardy minions Nick C (Rb, UVI) and Toby G (PH, UVI) for bringing the mountain bikes, running the hour. 
• Dr Brown for managing to get up for a 6am yoga session on the first day of Exeat. 
• ARD, JJCW, LRT, GJFB, Chris Conway and others for visiting at various times with encouragement and in one case very colourful clothing. 

But most importantly to all the participants for engaging with full heart and enthusiasm at every stage. Not all could be name-checked in this report but every one of them is a hero! As I write, the fundraising total stands at £6,646. Could we, just maybe, reach £7,200 which would fund a year’s education for 20 street children? 

Donations are welcome here.

Seb Cooley