Schools to show their class at hot Selborne festival

Selborne Primary to host tournament for first time

Exciting school hockey action gets under way on Friday as the Mugg & Bean SA Prep Schools Hockey Festival hosted by Selborne Primary is battled out in East London.

This will be the 16th annual showing of the popular festival which will see fourteen U13 teams take part.

This is the first time the festival will take place in East London, with Selborne Primary becoming the 12th different school to host the popular event.

“We are excited to be hosting this prestigious festival and are really looking forward to seeing some cracking hockey over the three days,” said business liaison for Selborne, Shaun Fourie.

“We are also extremely grateful to our sponsors who have come on board to help us, particularly Mugg & Bean who are our [named] sponsor.”

The prestigious Prep Schools’ Hockey Festival started in 2003 when Merchiston hosted the inaugural event that included eight schools, five of which came from KwaZulu-Natal.

Merchiston, Highbury, Clifton, Northlands and Durban Preparatory High are the only schools to have participated in every festival.

But St Andrews Bloemfontein have competed in it 15 times, and King Edwards Preparatory School 14 times.

Since 2010, the organisation of the festival has become a little more structured in terms of “core school” participation, and therefore 12 schools from around the country are now automatically invited to play, U13 teams will compete in the 16th annual showing of the festival with provision made for the host school to invite two additional schools should they wish to do so.

The other core schools automatically invited are The Ridge, which participated in 13 editions, Grey Junior School PE (11), Selborne (10), Rondebosch (nine) and St Stithians (five).

The two additional schools that Selborne have invited to this year’s festival are Stirling and Hudson Primary schools and they will surely be eager to impress during the event.

All of the games will be played at Selborne College and Stirling High School astro-turfs, with the action kicking off on Friday morning and ending on Sunday afternoon.

The festival will also include a formal dinner with a guest speaker where all the players will be in full uniform and enjoying some valuable tips.

The parents are invited to a function on the same night, as many parents come down to support their children playing in the festival, organisers said.

We are excited to be hosting this popular festival’s cracking hockey