• OC
  • 24 January 2022

OCs help England Sevens to Bronze in Spain

This weekend, three former Cranleigh 1st XV rugby players; Jamie Barden (Cubitt 2018), Hayden Hyde (East 2019) and Will Trenholm (North 2020),…

This weekend, three former Cranleigh 1st XV rugby players; Jamie Barden (Cubitt 2018), Hayden Hyde (East 2019) and Will Trenholm (North 2020), represented England in the men’s sevens team at the world series in Spain where they won Bronze. All of these individuals have had a unique journey into professional sport with Jamie studying at Nottingham University alongside his rugby career, whereas Hayden and Will are currently full time with Harlequins. All three young men played for the school across several sports and all of them won both national fifteens and/or sevens titles during their time at School.

It is a very proud moment for the Boys, their families and friends as well as us as a whole school community. Representing your country is the highest honour and their success is so thoroughly deserved because I know how hard they have worked for it. To have one in the squad last season was a dream for the rugby programme here, but to have three playing together for England, goes beyond our wildest hopes for them.

At Cranleigh, we will always prioritise the whole sports programme with our focus on giving each pupil the very best experience possible in a wide range of sports so that they will have a lifelong involvement, but clearly we also have the high-performance aspect of our sports programme as well. Over the last few months, it has been amazing to witness the sporting successes of so many Old Cranleighans. With their success happening across so many sports, it means that every pupil at Cranleigh has someone to look up to and take inspiration from.

Over the last six months or so, Cranleigh has seen nine Old Cranleighans playing in the Premier Super 6 or Division 1 men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor hockey tournaments and league. Last week two OCs were selected as Hockey goalkeepers for Ireland Women’s full international and Men’s Great Britain EDP level respectively. We had two hockey players at the Olympics for both the Women’s and Men’s teams and another in the wider squad. Will Barnicoat is running for Great Britain U20’s at the 3,000m distance. The School also witnessed five former 1st XV rugby players in the Harlequins 1st team matchday squad before Christmas at premiership level. We had cricketers playing at county level last summer with the likes of Mike Burgess and Ollie Pope competing at the very top level with Ollie playing in the recent Ashes tour.

All of these achievements across both Women’s and Men’s sports, provides our pupils with a wonderful set of role models to look up to. I don’t think it is a coincidence that over the last few weeks as a School we have seen our current pupils competing at National Finals in the Girls U18 Indoor hockey, Girls and Boys cricketers selected for county winter nets for Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and even for Scotland Women’s U19s. A handful of boys playing for London Irish and Harlequins in their EPDG matches. International Riders and Skiers competing around Europe. County-level swimmers and athletes across a wide breadth of sports.  Netballers playing and training at Surrey Storm U19 and U17 age groups.

Needless to say we are very proud of Jamie, Will and Hayden and all of our OCs achieving so much in the sporting world. We are very proud to be part of their development and the continued development of our current and future pupils.

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