It began three years ago with a small school softball club started by a physics teacher, Gareth Dunn, who had previously played co-ed slowpitch softball in London's Hyde Park. Now, the school team, the Monmouth Rockets, has just been promoted in the Bristol Softball League and has six players in GB Fastpitch team pools.
All this has happened with a core group of no more than 20 or so players in the softball club, and Gareth is lucky to get a dozen players to turn out for freezing winter training sessions on the school's Astroturf or grass pitches since indoor facilities are rarely available (their record is training at -6 degrees).
Moreover, the players don't even come from exactly the same school – there is Monmouth Boys School down by the River Wye in this small but pretty Welsh town, and Monmouth Girls School up on the hill, over half a mile away.
But despite this and other obstacles (an initial lack of funding, no equipment to start with and no slot in the school timetable), the Monmouth Softball Club has had amazing success.
Good move
The problem for a school like this that gets involved in softball in an isolated part of the country is finding someone to play against. But here is where Gareth Dunn, who told the school at his job interview that he planned to start a softball club if they hired him, has been particularly ingenious, figuring that if there were no other schools or kids to compete with, they'd have to play against adults.
So the team, with players aged from 14 to 18, first got noticed in the softball community at the end of the 2012 season when they travelled all the way up to Edinburgh to compete in the Festiball – and won more games than they lost.
Early in 2012, the team had applied to join the Cardiff Softball League but were turned down because some players were under 16. So they turned to the more welcoming Bristol League instead, where they started off in the third division. That season was a learning curve, but in 2013, the Rockets finished joint top of the third division and have been promoted to the second division for the 2014 season.
Competing in the Bristol League means leaving Monmouth at 4.00 pm on match days, travelling to Bristol, playing and getting back around 10.00 pm. “But the kids love it,” Gareth said, “and their enthusiasm drives the club.”
Around half the school population is local while the other half are boarders, and some of the local kids who have left the school still come back to play because they don't want to give up the sport.
Meanwhile, the team has been to the Edinburgh Festiball for a second time and has competed in other adult tournaments in Stroud and Birmingham.
“It's been immensely rewarding,” Gareth said. “Some kids who weren't particularly successful at other sports have found that they can be at softball. They kind of like the fact that it's rare and they can play in tournaments and play against adults.”
And of course, softball is unique at the school in being a mixed sport.
“Because it's mixed,” Gareth said, “it's a more pleasant team dynamic than it would be with just a bunch of guys. It's not so full of testosterone.”
GB selections
Once the team became known by people in the softball community, some support began to arrive. Stan Doney, who had revived a GB Under-19 Men's Team and took them to European Championships in 2011, did some coaching sessions at the school and soon spotted potential talent. Several boys from the school were invited to Academy Softball sessions, and when it came time to select the GB Under-19 Men's Team to compete in European Championships in July 2013 in Denmark, four boys from Monmouth were chosen: Amit Aswani, Ieuan Gale, Robert Mosley and Tom Price.
Unfortunately for Tom, he suffered a cracked wrist and wasn't able to make the trip, but the three others were an integral part of the squad.
Just recently, on 8 December, GB Under-16 Girls' Head Coach Jeremy Thomas and his daughter Immy, now an Under-19 pool member, came down to Monmouth to run an all-day training session, and two girls from the school, Katie Schofield and Alys Thomas, have been invited to join the Under-16 pool.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Gareth said: “The aim of the club for me has been to take the players as far as their abilities will allow. We are about progressing kids and our aim is to get players to a GB level.”
Recruiting drive
Of course, in any school team, kids move on and new players have to be found. Gareth Dunn attributes the Rockets' success in the Bristol League this year to having a settled team on most weeks, despite the call of other sports, other school activities and exams.
But a big recruiting drive will be needed in 2014 because a number of older players, including the boys in the GB Under-19 squad, will be leaving at the end of the 2014 summer term. Some of these sixth formers already lend a hand at training sessions, and one or two of them are eager to attend a coaching course that BSUK's Will Lintern hopes to organise in the South West shortly.
“Ideally, we want to get kids started at 13 or 14,” Gareth said, “so we can have them for a number of years and they can learn the game while playing together.”
Although the team mainly competes in slowpitch, Gareth is keen to help those players who are also playing fastpitch or have the potential to do so. Sport Wales (the counterpart to Sport England) has been approached for a grant to buy a pitching machine, and Gareth will encourage more players to attend Academy Softball sessions, though the distance to Milton Keynes can be a bit daunting.
Like any small programme outside of the softball mainstream, the Monmouth School Rockets would be vulnerable to a lack of new recruits, or to Gareth Dunn getting a new teaching post elsewhere. But a great foundation has been built at the school, and the hopes are that the club can use its achievements to grow and develop into a school institution.