Meet the Team – National Men’s Team
With the European Curling Championships kicking off this weekend, we figured it might be a good idea to get to know our teams a little better and see who’s going to be carrying the flag this year in Perth! So let’s “meet the team”!
This time, it’s the turn of the men, and it’s a new look for England’s men this year with a departure from the Woolston/Reed dominance of recent years!
Team Retchless were a new entry at the English Men’s at the end of last season, but showed just how capable they were. With skip Rob backed up by Joe Sugden, Scott Gibson, Jonathan Havercroft and Felix Price, this is a team that could pack a punch or two!
The fifth man for this campaign is Felix Price, a self-described “property mogul” who’s been on the ice for ten years, having started at school. He spent seven years playing with the English Junior team, with teammate Joe, along with Harry Pinnel and Archer Wood. Felix knows a thing or two about curling on an international stage, and will no doubt be looking forward to supporting the team on his first event at men’s level.
Always the joker, he’s a keen gamer and boasts that he can clap with one hand. I suppose that’s that ancient riddle solved, then? Despite the jokes (which are always a good morale booster), Felix has a cool head and an understanding of the game that will be invaluable to the team this week!
At lead and vice-skip is Jonathan Havercroft. Originally from Canada, Jonathan has been curling for thirty-six years, having first picked up a broom in high-school. Since moving to England, he’s picked up two national mixed titles, representing England at the World Mixed in 2019 and 2022. He also notes that he’s won the Kent and Sussex Bonspiel twice, having beaten Joe in the play-offs on both occasions!
Interestingly, Jonathan remarks that he has “NO” hobbies outside of curling, but notes that he co-hosts the “sixth most influential curling podcast” with Ryan McGhee called “Rocks Across the Pond”. A true student of the game it would seem. But there is, alas, a world outside curling, where Jonathan is a professor of Political Theory at the University of Southampton. Perhaps there will be some students cheering him on?
The team’s second is a new addition in the form of Scott Gibson, who jumped in following Harry’s decision to take a step back and focus on his work. Scott’s been on the ice for bang-on two decades – surely not! In that time, Scott’s pulled together a most impressive record with appearances at the European Juniors in 2015, three European Championships, one World Qualifying event and, most recently, the World Mixed, earning 46 caps in eight years. He’s also a two-time Scottish Province Champion, but we’ll keep that one quiet!
It was Scott’s grandparents who got him into curling and, during his school days, he used to skip the school’s staff team – not a bad way to get back at your teachers by making them sweep! By day, Scott is a Senior Mechanical Engineer and enjoys sailing and badminton… although, that’s when his busy club curling schedule permits!
The team’s third is former junior skip, Jotham “Joe” Sugden. He’s been curling for ten years, playing on the junior team with Felix and collecting 43 caps as a junior, with 6 junior titles to his name. Making his first appearance on the men’s level, Joe is looking to keep that train rolling. It was a stalwart of English Curling, Owen Rees, who got Joe into curling through the Beacon School Curling Club. Since then, he’s played in various World Junior B events and attended curling camps in Fussen.
He’s cool customer on the ice, and he won’t let anyone tell him that skips can’t sweep – a former skip, Joe is lethal on the broom. With Scott and Joe together, team England has a sweeping powerhouse!
Back in the real world, Joe works for a coffee roaster – so we know where the team will be getting its caffeine supply from! Always active, Joe enjoys getting out into nature to cycle and hike.
Finally, we have the skip – Rob Retchless. Rob has a wealth of curling experience, and has been curling for thirty years. With his parent’s starting him off young, he seems to have been hooked from a young age.
For Rob, building the team was an organic process. He reached out to Jonathan when he was moving over to Europe – the pair having played together previously. It was Jonathan, as a former coach, who brought Harry and Joe along, and when Harry stepped back, Rob reached out to Scott.
On the outside, Rob is a laid-back kind of guy, enjoying karaoke, hiking, and travelling and notes the goals as “Go sports, score the points, win the games”. But this software engineering director (and holder of five US patents) knows just what it’s going to take to win those games. The team have been training together whenever they can, they’ve played events in Prague and Denmark, as well as organising training weekends with David “Rambo” Ramsay.
From the outset, it’s looked to be a strong unit, dispatching English curling heavyweights and ending an unbroken string of English titles going to one or both of Andrew Woolston and Andrew Reed since 2010. But with all but one of this unit making their European debut, will they rise to the challenge? We certainly think so!
We’ll be cheering Rob and the team on this week, and we hope you can join in by either coming up to Perth, or by following the ECA socials!