Cubitt Newsletter Lent 2017
House Bouldering: Max Grisley
Bouldering this year was...interesting. With the first snowfall of the year, our team bouldered better than we had ever bouldered before, partly because it was our first time. We had the best support, but unfortunately, we lost. In fact, the person who gained the most points single-handedly beat Cubitt’s entire score. However, Sam Barnard made a brilliant appearance, completing the notorious jump and climb, and gained the most points out of the three of us, followed by James Whitfield and finally, myself. In the end, North won pretty convincingly, with Loveday runners-up. It was not Cubitt’s finest hour, but it was enjoyable and insightful.
House Debating: Toby Chesser Few competitions in the recent times have been so steeped in controversy and filled with intrigue as the house debating competition. Tobias Chesser, Benjamin Chesser, and Christopher Oldfield were chosen to represent Cubitt. Though they had spent the whole year preparing for the competition, they could not but feel a sense of trepidation, as they contemplated the immense importance of their task. Having won the competition last year, Cubitt were given a bye into the semi-finals. But the result of this was for the Cubittians to be thrown in at the deep end, being forced to argue against democracy in the motion, “This house believes that the government should ignore the result of the Brexit referendum”. But by cleverly stating that the parliamentary system was actually more democratic than direct democracy, Cubitt nulled the effectiveness of West’s advocacy for Brexit, and won the round. The final promised to be significantly more controversial, with South proposing, “This house believes that women should pay less income tax than men”. However, the sexism was countered professionally and effectively not just by the team, but by the whole house in the floor debate. Without Mrs Frett to make illegal intercessions on behalf of her house, South had no chance, and the judge had no choice but to announce that Cubitt had won. Special mention must go to Lewis Bedford for describing women as “a different species”. Another Cubitt victory was in the bag, and although it was anticipated, it was pleasant nevertheless.
House Football: Harry De Blaby
Stonesett Trophy: James Whitfield
Having beaten Loveday in the semi-final with an extra time winner from Mr M. Richards to secure a 4-3 victory, it was to be, as it is every year, a Cubitt vs East final. The first half of the final was brought to an end goalless with a fair fought battle up and down the pitch with some crucial saves and clearances from one Mr L. Bedford. With the wind behind us in the second half, the team created many great opportunities and some excellent passages of play, with fantastic link up work between Mr J. Kendall and Mr S. Clark down the left side, and promising shots blocked off the boots off Mr J. Vickery and Mr H. de Blaby. With both teams still unable to convert their chances the scoreboard remained at 0-0. East applied some good pressure near the closing stages of the second half but the strong defensive collaboration of Mr J. Halls and Mr S. Peace in the middle, resulted in East not able to find the net. After the match ended as a draw we proceeded to go into extra time where the first team to score would become immediate victors. Cubitt seemed to be dominant at this point until East got a lucky ball over the top and with the wind performing some dark arts on the ball, our defence were caught out and the ball slipped through to, what was almost certainly, an offside East attacker who proceeded to score, closing the game. After the some controversial linesman work, the decision was not reversed and Cubitt had been betrayed… meaning we emerge as the runnersup …2017 was not to be.
Stoneset is the brilliant game of hockey where five champions of Cubitt, with approximately the coronation of a three legged donkey with severe arthritis, attempt to put a ball in a small sized goal. The first glorious team to emerge emitted a suspicious haze of smoke (and a flurry of gating cards) were the dubiously titled Vapelords. Special mention to Andy Bang who despite having the lung capacity of a three year old child with asthma managed not to collapse. The second team were the Musically Gifted, and special mention to Chris whose reverse goal was so sexy every girl in South fainted simultaneously. The Third team were the internationals; full of two audacious Australians, one notorious Nigerian, a courageous Chinaman and a British bloke. Special mention to James Whitfield who was so embarrassingly proud of his three superbly taken goals that he boasted about them for the entirety of this sentence. The fourth team were the Buffet, a group of individuals so large that their combined gravitational pull pulled the moon 3cm closer to the earth. Special mention to Max House and his consumption of a record number of pies before the game. If you didn't realise from my incredible procrastination and not mentioning the games, we lost every single one except one which was a 3-3 draw from the internationals. Well done to all involved.
House Charity Evening:
Drama– The Heart of Robin Hood: Jack McKee
Lewis Bedford
The Cubitt play was a resounding success. Cubitt has a long tradition of producing some of the school’s most renowned thespians. This year we had some big shoes to fill following the success of last year’s production of Harlequinade. After much debate we chose to go with David Farr’s The Heart of Robin Hood. The play required strong leading roles and considerable amounts of set design. It was really good to see the amount of people who came to audition for the production and the number of people who got tickets to watch it.
Cubitt were blessed with the presence of both Will Travers OBE and Virginia McKenna OBE at our house dinner. We had a fantastic turnout from the house which meant that we could raise as much money as possible for the various wildlife projects that the Born Free Foundation operate. Our silent auction prizes were fantastic and congratulations to all the winners. A special congratulations for James Vickery for beating the hall in the wildlife quiz winning a signed England cricket shirt. We raised in excess of £5000 for the charity, an inspirational achievement. Many thanks to all those involved in making the evening so special, especially the parents whose generous contributions led to the event’s success.
In end with large amounts of guidance and effort it came together to be an extensive performance showing the large array of Cubitt talent. The main roles required a lot of effort and time to perfect. Special mention must go to Leo Leman as Robin Hood, Abi Lord as Marion, Josh Reynolds as the evil Prince John and Max McLay as Pierre. However, the star of the play has to be Rob Cloete by amassing more laughs than anyone else put together. Many thanks to Mr Bradnock for putting the production on and making it come together.
Senior Water polo: Chris Oldfield Cubitt has a long and esteemed history of failure and disappointment when it comes to House Events in the pool and this year was ours to break that trend. With a team formed of both water polo players and those who had nothing else on, hopes were high. The first round against a strong North team was a tough opening challenge but a single goal was able to put Cubitt through to the final a real feat in itself. Fortunately we faced Loveday in the final, universally accepted to be the weakest team on the circuit. A hat trick from myself and a spectacular goal from goal keeper Sam Buglar from one end to the other put Cubitt 4-0 up with three quarters gone. Even allowing Loveday a couple of consolation goals in the final quarter, Cubitt showed their respectable humility. As the final whistle went with Cubitt 4-2 up, our first ever victory in the pool was etched into the history of Cubitt House.
Music Review: Chris Oldfield
Senior Cross Country: Max Richards
In another busy term of Cranleigh life, it was good to see the Cubitt music scene thriving as usual, with the future of musical Cubittians looking particularly bright. The standout event was the hugely successful Cranleigh Live V, in which myriad Cubittians performed, but particular mention must go to Max Hartley, who held an audience of hundreds with a note perfect guitar solo, and Luca La Costa who fronted his band - to sing in front of a crowd that big is an impressive feat for anyone, let alone a fourth former. Chris Oldfield was the only member of the house to make it through to the Helen Wareham Final and whilst there were only two competing for the brass victory, he did still manage to lose. It was almost against the odds. Finally, a small jazz band of Cubitt's finest was put together for the Charity evening and, despite personnel changes on the day of the performance, put in a commendable performance, showing the perseverance and diligence that makes a good Cubittian.
The Sixth form team consisted of De Blaby, Chesser, Burns, McIntyre, Barden, Richards, George Pettifer, El Luis, Thompson and Leman. Thankfully some traditions still continued as De Blaby stormed away with the lead from Cal. But with some very late dropout decisions, hours before the big race, myself, Thompson and I think Leman got the nod from the gaffa a.k.a Rob Cloete/ Green. From a good performance from the top of the house we can overall accept second place which isn't normal for us but we have to share the trophy around at some point. Well done to all competitors.
Junior House Water polo: Luke Specogna
Hockey: Tom Lawes
Our first game was against North. We started strongly putting 3 goals away in the first half and then another two in the second. Tiger Cronk and Hugh HollandCreaven manged to get on the score sheet with two cracking goals including a penalty flick and a classy celebration from Hugh. We carried this through into our next game against Loveday. Oscar Peace scored first and then Olly Witts. We were confident in the second half and conceded. This fired us up and we continued as our usual selves scoring another two. East came at us with a quick and aggressive start on Thursday afternoon. We were taken back for a bit but then after one short corner when Luca La Costa hits the back board we got fired up again and score to bring the game to an end and seal the victory. Overall it was a great performance by the Cubitt boys bringing home another trophy. Well done to everyone involved and thanks to the touchline support.
This year’s water polo was very dramatic. Our team, most of the IV and V form, were determined to leave a mark in this year’s competition. We were the first to arrive, however we weren’t allowed to warm up, as we weren’t the first team playing in the tournament. After the first game between East and Loveday was finished, we warmed up in the pool. Our opponents, North, had one outstanding player to look out for, and we managed to prevent him from dealing any harm in the first half. The first half finished without any goals, however we were at a disadvantage, as we had to play in the deep end. We managed to score the opening goal. Nonetheless, the their goalkeeper managed to score a goal into the topright corner, and this seemed to shut our entire team down, as we conceded two more goals in quick succession. The final score was 1-3 and even after having lost, our team could walk away blissfully, as we tried our best to clench the win.
Football Sixes: James Vickery On a pleasant Saturday afternoon the Cubitt boys went out to try win the house sixes competition. The team was Harry De Blaby, Jack McKee, Rob Cloete, Lewis Bedford, Jamie Barden, James Whitfield and me. We went into the competition with a few people missing which didn’t help our chances of winning but we came up against a strong East house side in the first match; this was set to be a cracking game of football. We went 1-0 up early but we threw our lead away, which seemed to be a recurring theme across the day and the game ending at 1-1 with a late goal for East house. We then came up against arguably the best team in the sixes competition which was North house, we went 1-0 up again but north scored to make it 1-1 and in the dying moments they scored a late goal to make it 2-1. The last opponent was a weaker Loveday side which we thought we could get a win but we were wrong and once again we went 1-0 up but ended up losing 2-1. Thanks to all the Cubitt boys who put in a good shift that day and thanks to all the support.
House Chess: Luke Cahusac
Cubitt set off at the beginning of house chess to a flying start after Josh Pike winning his game using only three moves, quite impressive. East did have some strong chess players among their community, however they were no match for the likes of Josh Pike, Max Grisley, Benj Chesser and Toby Chesser, who all won there games except for Luke Cahusac who narrowly lost after having an opportunity to put his opponent in check mate only twenty moves in. The finally round against North proved to be slightly harder but we still managed to beat them 3-2 with Hugh Holland-Creaven filling in for Luke who went on to beat Max Haggas from North. So after Beating North we were victorious over all other houses at chess.
Junior House Cross Country: Harvey Stiles
On the 20th of March, there was the Junior House Cross Country which Cubitt had been longing to win. Everyone was ready at the starting line. 3 People From the 4th form all the way up to the Upper Fifth were contesting. This included Robin Greenstock, Will Wilkinson, and Luke from the 4th form. From the Lower Fifth, there was Harvey Stiles, Will Firth and Oscar Maclean and from the Upper Fifth, there was Finn Morgan, Josh Elliot and Kit Batham-Read, all of whom raced to their best ability in the cold and muddy conditions which made the Cross country very challenging. Overall, the placings ranged from 4th position up to 30thposition which gave Cubitt a good chance in the running for 1st place. Everyone in the event put in a great effort.