Hans Woyda Season Begins

Thursday night saw the official launching of the 2023-24 Hans Woyda season with our second annual friendly with SPGS. This year the girls’ school hosted the event, meaning that all I had to worry about was selecting a squad, gathering them all in the atrium on time and walking them across the river. Each task turned out to be a little more complicated than expected – the first because a record total of 55 pupils tried out for the team, the second because everyone got distracted by Alex Barea doing magic tricks, and the third because I was simultaneously trying to warm them up with practice questions and avoid leading them into oncoming traffic – but it was still a relief knowing that the logistics of the match itself were out of my hands entirely. That particular burden was shouldered by Alexandra Shamloll who organised everything seamlessly, putting my rather chaotic handling of last year’s match to shame. Once we had arrived and the pupils had been split into their teams (aptly named Team Alpha to Team Zeta, yet another improvement on the rather pedestrian Team 1 to Team 6 I came up with), the six-way battle royale was ready to commence.

The teams started on relatively level pegging in the starter section with very little to distinguish between them, but by the end of the mental arithmetic section Epsilon and Gamma had fallen a bit behind, with Alpha, Delta and Zeta neck and neck and Beta hot on their heels. There was plenty of frenzied cooperation between the two schools in the team section, but Alpha misinterpreted the question (which was admittedly a little ambiguously worded) and fell behind Delta and Zeta as a result.

After a quick break for some sandwiches (and a rather spectacular rainbow cake), the teams took their seats for the second half. With only two questions between the top four teams, it was still all to play for, and there was a noticeable air of excitement as the match resumed. The mounting tension was neatly reflected by the orchestra rehearsal in the hall outside, which had been playing some rather sombre tunes in the first half of the match but launched into a rousing rendition of The William Tell Overture at the start of the calculator section. Alpha and Beta were clearly better at maintaining concentration than the others since they managed to catch back up to Delta, overtaking Zeta in the process. There was more upset to come in the algebra section, where both Delta and Zeta fell behind Alpha and Beta who were the new joint frontrunners, and as we entered the race section it was still possible for any of the six teams to end up on top. Both Gamma and Zeta made valiant attempts to make up for lost ground over the final eight questions, but in the end, it was Delta that emerged victorious, having prevented both Alpha and Beta from picking up a single extra point.

Special mentions must go to Haolin Zhao (Upper Eighth) and Alex Barea (Sixth Form) for making up half of the winning team. Special thanks should also be extended to Alexandra and Damon for helping to organise yet another fantastic friendly, and also to Thomas Wong, who volunteered to come along at the last minute to step in for an absent Year 13 from SPGS, only to find that they had found their own replacement, leaving him spectating from the back and attempting all the questions by himself for no better reason than sheer enjoyment of the mathematics.

I look forward to hosting next year’s friendly, and in the meantime, I am excitedly awaiting the first official match of the competition on Tuesday when Sanjay Iyer (Fourth Form), Alex Barea (Sixth Form), Kanishk Srivastava (Lower Eighth) and Neil Prabhu (Upper Eighth) will face off against Godolphin and Latymer. Congratulations to all the pupils who participated!

Written by Samuel Cullen-Hewitt, Teacher of Mathematics