A great day for sports and catching up with old friends and teachers at the School. It was wonderful to welcome back so many Old Cats to play hockey, netball and basketball with parents and friends to cheer the sides. This year the parents’ ‘Back to Netball’ group joined in the tournament, and with so many Old Cats returning for hockey, we fielded two matches including ‘Gold Cats’ v Recent Leavers.

See photos and match reports below.

This year Old Cats returned to play from Classes of 2005-2022. We love to see Old Cats of all ages returning to join in the Old Cats Sports Days, so do get in touch if you would like to join in the fun next year.

Click here to view many more photos of the day.

If you have any photos that you would like to share, please email them to oldcats@caterhamschool.co.uk and they can be added to the gallery.

BASKETBALL

School 57 – 37 OCs

The OCs basketball match against the School was a great occasion with a fantastic turnout from the Old Cats and great support from a crowd of current and former pupils and staff.  The school team was understandably nervous in the days before the match that they would find it difficult to compete with the quality of the OCs squad, made up of fourteen legends of Caterham basketball.

However it is probably fair to say that the game did not go entirely to plan for the OCs. Despite strong performances from guards Benny Wong and Speed Fung, the physical presence of Mykolas Padolskis under the basket and a succession of driving lay-ups from Jack Wang and Thomas Yu, the OCs were clearly surprised by the speed and fitness of the school team who were able to open up an early lead with a series of fast breaks.

Led by Sihu Jung and Mark Lee the OCs continued to battle hard, and threatened to close the gap in the second half before the school team pulled away again in the closing minutes to win 57-37.

The game overall was a great advert for school basketball, and much of the credit for this must go to Chris Bovet-White who did a huge amount to build the basketball programme in the School over the past few years before relocating to the south-west last summer. Many thanks for Chris for driving up from South Devon to referee the game.

School 5 v 4 OCs
Gold Cats 3 v 1 Recent Leavers

Sunday saw a festival of hockey take place on the astro pitch at Caterham School, with Old Cats leavers from last year visiting along with a hugely successful group of ‘Gold Cats’ from 10 years ago.

The first match saw the recent leavers go up against the Gold Cats. With some fantastic hockey on show and some great goals in a back-and-forth battle, experience told, and the Gold Cats team ran out 3-1 winners.

Next up was a combined recent leavers and Gold Cats team playing against the current students, and the game did not disappoint. Fresh from their first game and with their ‘eye in’, alongside some loose defending by the current students the Old Cats raced in to a 4-0 half time lead. Something special was needed, and after an inspirational half time team talk the current students started the second half on the front foot. Scoring early to make the score 4-1, the belief and confidence began to flow through the team. As the Old Cats tired the students began to create more and more chances, levelling at 4-4 with 4 minutes to play. They weren’t done there though, and continued to push forward, sensing the win. With 1 minute left on the clock, as the students piled forward, the ball bounced around the Old Cats goal and was stopped on the line by a Gold Cat body. Penalty stroke was the call. Up stepped T. Banton, who dispatched it and in doing so sealed a famous win for the students.