A school honoured their former classmate with a fine performance at the home of cricket as they finished as the fifth best table cricket team in the country.

The team from Victoria Education Centre in Poole travelled to Lord’s last week for the Lord’s Taverners National Table Cricket finals to pay tribute to their former captain, Robert Ewins, who died two months ago from muscular dystrophy.

The Poole school’s side were one of nine who qualified to compete in the Nursery Pavilion, at Lord’s Cricket Ground, for the right to call themselves national champions – eventually finishing fifth.

The event, which was made possible thanks to the support of players of the People’s Postcode Lottery and Ford, is now in its 19th year and, working with 30 county cricket boards across the UK, more than 300 schools took part in the 10 regional heats to qualify for the finals.

Conor Ferris, 17, of Poole, represented his side at Lord’s and was proud of his peers’ efforts.

“If we did win it wouldn’t have been such a big deal for us because we lost our captain to muscular dystrophy two months ago,” he said.

“We weren’t there to win, we were just there to have fun and take part.

“It’s lovely to be at Lord’s, it was a nice day too, which was a bonus. It’s nice to be here and have some challenged – which is what Lord’s Taverners is all about, having fun and having new challenges.

“As I’ve been playing for so long, Lord’s Taverners have helped in all kinds of ways. You watch cricket on TV, and me and my mate were joking around, watching the normal cricket, and saying ‘we don’t know these rules, table cricket seems more simple’!”

Played on a table tennis table with side panels and sliding fielders, a ball launcher, weighted plastic ball and wooden bat, table cricket enables young people with severe physical and learning disabilities to enjoy cricket and represent their school on a competitive basis.

The game not only gives opportunities for competitive play and social integrations, it also improves life-skills including self-confidence, independence and social skills.

And for the school’s senior physical activity assistant, Ali Dougal, being part of the day at Lord’s was tribute enough to Ewins.

“He’s still part of our team,” she said.

“It means so much to the kids. We train every week and they talk about it all the time, so just to get here is amazing.

“Teamwork, sportsmanship, making sure they shake hands with their opponents and applaud each other, are things we try to instil in our children.

“We’ve won this competition so many times, so I think when they lose a game it’s quite hard for them to take, and that’s helped them – they’ve been applauded for their teamwork and sportsmanship.”

Watching on as the school competed at Lord’s was Radio 1 DJ, cricket lover and member of Lord’s Taverners Greg James.

And he was excited to see the charity making cricket available to people of all abilities.

“I’ve never seen table cricket before on this sort of scale and it’s been brilliant,” he said.

“I’ve seen it in videos and heard all about it, but to see hundreds of kids from all over the country in one place, just enjoying it and having a day playing cricket at Lord’s, it doesn’t really get any better than that.

“There are kids who love cricket, but also some who just like the team element of it all, the community aspect.

“What I love about it, is that it’s not exclusive to people and it has its own fans.”

The Lord’s Taverners is the UK’s leading youth cricket and disability sports charity whose aim is to give disadvantaged and disabled young people a sporting chance – go to www.lordstaverners.org to find out more.