#SaintsFest2017 was a success

As the Saints Sports Festival approached our campus started to change: staging was brought in, badges were painted on the field, and so much more. You could feel the excitement take over St Stithians College.

The Prep Festival was a success: besides much-needed rain which caused a few fixtures to be rescheduled, the event was filled with excited Prep players and their coaches and supporters participating in netball, rugby, and tennis.

Over the Easter weekend we celebrated 34 years of the Saints Sports Festival with tens of thousands of players, supporters, and staff from all over South Africa. A total of 38 817 ticket-holders came through the gates on 13, 15, 17 April 2017. When we add accreditation numbers to this, it becomes clear that around 50 000 to 55 000 people visited our school over the Easter weekend during the College Festival. Wow!

Thank you for making this happen as this remarkable feat was made possible through the tireless efforts of our community: parents, staff, students, and alumni.

Over the Easter weekend over 200 fixtures are scheduled to be played by 1 400 participants in basketball, cross country, football, hockey, netball, rugby, squash, and tennis. While the Prep Festival marked the beginning of #SaintsFest2017, there was a group photo taken on Wednesday 12 April 2017 of all the College Festival players. The Saints Festival group photo is a wonderful way to celebrate the camaraderie and fun that is the Festival. It’s phenomenal to have these over 1 400 players at our school participating in over 200 fixtures and we love that we can take this photo.

For the first time in Festival history, we welcomed a football tournament. The football fixtures saw St Stithians, and six Soweto schools participating in an 11-a- side round robin set of games on Thursday 13 April 2017. Saints organised transport for the participating teams to the get to the Festival and back home afterwards. Like the other Festival players, the soccer players received tasty meals during the event. We are excited to have welcomed these 14 players and their coaches for some fun games of "the beautiful game."

Saints Festival soccer tournament results

The participating teams had a wonderful time playing the sport they love and we enjoyed hosting all the talented players.

The final top four rankings are:

1. Saints
2. Mapetla High School
3. Motsaneng
4. Khotso

The tennis tournament is an annual tournament welcoming a number of great tennis schools to compete for the Kevin Anderson Trophy. International tennis player Kevin Anderson is an Old Stithian.

Final tennis results:

6th place: Grey College

5th place: St Benedict's College

4th place: St David's Marist Brothers

3rd place: Clifton School

2nd place: Pretoria Boys' High School

1st place: St Stithians Boys' College

For 6th year in a row St Stithians are the winners of the Kevin Anderson Trophy.

The cross country was a part of the Festival for the second time this year: the women's cross country events joined the Festival for the first time this year. The cross country events began with a fun run on Thursday 13 April 2017 in which a number of staff members participated, including our Rector Dr Tim Nuttall and Saints Festival event organiser Ms Barbara Beauchamp. The JP started us off on Saturday 15 April 2017 with a 7am run, they were followed by various junior and senior runs.

Below are a few of the many photos taken over the course of #SaintsFest2017.

Gallery photos by Wessel Oosthuzen, Grant Urdang, Nomvula Marawa

Access all the results on our app.

View albums of great photos captured at the Festival on our Facebook page. Photographs were taken by Wessel Oosthuizen and by our Photographic Club students from the two Colleges.

Thank you to all our generous sponsors for your support. Here is a full list of all the sponsors for the Festival. Thank you to all our vendors.

Thank you to all our dedicated staff, parents, and alumni who helped make this Festival such a success. It could not have happened without you.