Pick your battles
The Lohana Sports Festival sports number ten, plus one singing competition, with a Shield on the line. Whether you're a serial finalist or a first-timer, there's a draw with your name on it.
The four-game rule
Choose up to two sports, and up to two categories in each, so four games at most. It keeps the schedule fair and stops anyone sprinting between six courts at once. Pool, golf and Antakshari sit outside the limit because they're on other days or stages, so feel free to add those on top. The form enforces it automatically, so there's no maths to do.
Never played competitively? Perfect.
Most people here are not serial finalists. There are draws for all ages and levels, pickleball takes ten minutes to learn, and every entry scores a Shield point for your mahajan, win or lose. Turning up is the achievement.
Badminton
The festival classic and the biggest trophy programme of 2025, with seven contested categories. Age bands from under-12 to 50 plus, and the one sport with its own 50 plus doubles. Bring your racquet; shuttles are provided.
Table tennis
The most entered sport at the last festival, run with the RCT table tennis team. Quick hands, quicker banter, and merciless on anyone who boasts at family dinners. Bring your bat; balls are provided.
Squash
Four walls, no hiding place. A smaller field means small categories may merge on the day, and it also means a genuine chance of silverware. Bring your racquet.
Pickleball
Played on the badminton courts, paddles and balls provided, so you bring precisely nothing. Ten minutes to learn, which makes it the perfect first-ever festival entry. If you have watched for four years, this is your year.
Tennis
The courts are being resurfaced and the venue confirms about two weeks out. If tennis cannot run, every tennis entry is refunded in full. Suits optimists, which tennis players tend to be.
Football 7-a-side
Squads of seven plus two subs, up to three non-Lohanas in a squad of nine, moulded or plastic-studded boots only on the astro, shin pads strongly recommended. New youth 12–16 round-robin with its own entry.
Indoor cricket 7-a-side
A team competition for the first time. Seven a side plus two subs, same squad rules as football. For the cousins who have waited years for cricket to count for something.
Youth cricket U14
An afternoon session where every child takes a medal home. A parent or guardian stays on site for the day. The best £2 you will spend all September.
Pool
The festival opener at RCT Hall, Harrow, Saturday 12 September from 10am. Group stages on four tables before the knockout, so everyone gets several frames. Its own Saturday means you can enter all of its categories.
Golf
Stanmore Golf Club, 19 September. Registration at the club from 11am, first tee 1pm, coffee and roll included in the £75. Buggies £35 per buggy, shared by 2, pre-booked by LCUK and reserved when you entered. Limited, first come, first served.
Antakshari
Teams of five, all ages on the same team, one microphone. £55 per team, captain pays, and it never counts towards your limit, so singers and sportspeople do both.
Just watching
Spectators are free and nothing needs booking. It’s free, takes two minutes, and it’s how we plan seats, chai and shade for the day.
Seen the formats? Come and cheer them on. Both days free, just turn up.
Festival day
Eighteen holes and a roll
Registration at the club from 11am, first tee 1pm, which leaves exactly enough time for the coffee and roll already included in your £75. No vouchers, no small print. Golf sits outside the main-day limit, and golf trophies are presented at the main ceremony on Sunday the 20th, in front of the whole community, a considerably better audience than a clubhouse car park.
11am
Registration opens at the club.
Before 1pm
Coffee and a roll, included in your £75.
1pm
First tee.
Sun 20, from 5pm
Golf trophies at the main ceremony, Hatfield.
Buggies are £35 per buggy, shared by two golfers, limited, and pre-booked by LCUK — reserved when you entered — only five or six exist, allocated first come, first served — then pay at the club on the day. Please do not ring the club yourself.
Antakshari, the rules of engagement
The oldest game in every Lohana household finally gets trophies. Teams of five, all ages welcome on the same team, so two grandparents, a parent and two teenagers is entirely legal and frankly advisable. Because it's a cultural competition rather than a sport, it uses none of your two main-day sports.
How the Shield is won
Sixteen mahajans, one Shield, and a points system built so that turning up matters as much as winning. Five points for a winner, three for a runner-up, one for a semi-finalist, and one point for every single person who competes. Read that last part again. A mahajan that sends fifteen ordinary players beats one that sends three champions, which is exactly the point. Standings run on a board through Festival Day; the mahajan on top at the trophy presentation lifts the Shield and keeps it, engraved, until someone takes it off them in 2027.
Somebody is defending that trophy
Titles like these are only borrowed. Entries closed on 13 September.
Seeded on the 8th of September
Nobody plays once. Wherever the draw allows, group stages run before the knockout, so you get two or three guaranteed matches instead of possibly one. Draws are built by each sport's coordinator once entries close, from paid entries only, and published from around 15 September (10 September for pool). Your match times come from your coordinator before the day.
Who runs your sport
Draws, match times, squad changes and format questions go to your sport lead. Tap a number to call. Registration and payment queries are best sent to the committee.
Cricket — indoor and youth U14 — has no separate lead this year. Please contact Ashokbhai Rach on 07956 450895.
All the Lohana Sports Festival sports, found your game?
Every entry scores a point for your mahajan, win or lose. Entries closed on Sunday 13 September.
Festival day