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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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fives
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There were several ancient games known as fives (possibly from the five fingers), in which the ball was struck with the open hand. The two main varieties surviving today, played with a small hard ball and padded gloves, were formalized at *public schools during the 19C. The more eccentric of the two, *Eton fives, developed from a game which the boys played while waiting to go into chapel. The courts, of which the first was built in 1840, duplicated the chapel's buttresses and projections and even the drain at the foot of the entrance steps, resulting in a game in which the ball bounces at strange angles from a multiplicity of surfaces. *Rugby fives, by contrast, is played in a rectangular court similar to a squash court.
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