Thanks to everyone who participated, the volunteers who ran the event and the parents for bringing the players and supporting

Super Series Report 240313

Anglo Scottish Under 12 Tournament at Ashington .

13/14 April 2013

Two days of exciting badminton was enjoyed by a mixed team consisting of Durham and Northumberland players to form – ‘Tyne & Wear’

9 boys and 6 girls participated over the two days:-

George Moran (Northumberland), Andrew Howard (N), Gabriel Rodda (N), Sam Burdiss (Durham), Joshua Xu (N), Neil Shi (N), Arif Alam (N), Dylan Hope (N) and Melvin Cheerian (N).

Asmita Chaudhari (N), Zoe Beamson (D), Hannah Lee (D), Beth Haley (D), Anna Railton (N) and Rachel Bogan (N).

6 competing teams from Lothian, Borders, Yorkshire, Lanarkshire, Cumbria and Tyne & Wear played some very competitive matches.

Tyne & Wear got off to an excellent start with a convincing win 14-1 over Cumbria, followed by a very brave performance against Yorkshire losing 7-8 with one of the last boys doubles going to a tie break.

The last match on the first day was against a very competitive and fierce Lothian team who swept us away with a 4-11 victory.

On Sunday with a couple of the older boys back in the team, we played Borders, requiring victory to accelerate us up the table.  This was probably the most demanding and noisiest of matches as we went down 7-8. We took them to five final set play-offs, losing 3 to 2 with two of them going to 7-6.

Not deterred, our final contest was against Lanarkshire.  Buoyed up by our two narrow defeats, the team produced an amazing victory 10-5.

I would like to congratulate the whole team who played their part in a really successful tournament bringing the Tyne & Wear team into 4^th place: indeed, if it had not been for the odd point here and there we could have secured 3^rd or even 2^nd place.

Many thanks to the parents who supported the team – especially against Borders! The noise was at times deafening.

Considering the age of the team, ranging from 9 to 11, we did really well.  It is difficult to single out particular performances but mention must go to Hannah Lee who won all her games and to Rachel Bogan (aged only 9) who managed to secure various wins with a variety of partners.

The girls were particularly strong and enjoyed many successes.  All the boys battled really hard and were at times just ‘pipped at the post’ by some stronger, older and more experienced players.

Well done to all.

Chris Howard

UNDER 17 COUNTY CHALLENGE – APRIL 2013

Team:             Alisha Israni, Annie Karn, Megan Porter, Robyn Luckley & Sarah Wilson

Amit Chaudhari, Garrylee McMullen, Philip Pahatouridis, Ruiao Hu & Zarius Ferozepurwalla

Managers:      Alison & Rob Wetherell, Ken Conway

This year’s Inter-County Tournament, now renamed the County Challenge, took place at the end of Easter week at Nottingham University.  With last year’s girls all available and with a little more strength in depth with the boys, we had felt that a finishing position higher than last year’s 32^nd was a reasonable possibility and the mid-20s was a fair aim.  As always, however, the draw would be important, and particularly who we had to play in the crucial second round.

Our first group matched us with Essex, Oxford and Shropshire. Annie won the first girls singles against Essex and Alisha got close at second singles but that was about it: Essex won 9-1.  The effects of that defeat seemed to linger into the next match against Oxford and apart from a fine win by Philip in the second boys singles, the team were pretty flat and succumbed to a second 9-1 loss.  In the last match of the day, a good performance was needed against Shropshire, if only to give the team more heart for the remaining three days.  A general heart-to-heart with Coach Rob seemed to do the trick but they still had to contend with national champion Jess Pugh, who duly won her two matches with little trouble.  But Sarah and Philip put a point on the board in the second mixed and then the boys stirred themselves: Amit and Zarius both had good singles wins, followed by Garrylee & Philip and Zarius & Ruiao winning their level doubles in relative ease.  The score ended at 5-all, with the games won at 10-all … but we just lost, by a mere 4 points.  That was really tough.

Rob reckoned that the second round group was going to be difficult and so it proved.  But we started with a win: a close one but a win nevertheless!  Megan scored the first of several wins in mixed partnership with Garrylee.  Amit and Ruiao both had two-end singles victories and two boys doubles wins took the score to 5-all again.  However, Annie in singles and Robyn & Megan in doubles had both managed to take their matches to three ends: that was crucial and gave us the overall result by 12 ends to 10.  The remaining matches in the group were tough and we lost 8-2 to the Isle of Man, 6-4 to Norfolk and 7-3 to Dorset: the boys managed several wins but the girls were finding it a real struggle.

So, having finished 4^th in this group, the draw took us into the bottom group along with Somerset, although we did carry forward our win against them.  Now we could not hope for any better than matching last year’s finishing position of 32^nd but we would have to win all remaining matches.  Our next match was against Staffs.  Another very tight one.  There were singles wins for Philip and Annie, doubles wins for Garrylee & Philip, Ruiao & Zarius and Garrylee & Megan and, most importantly, three-ended losses for Annie & Sarah, Robyn & Megan and Ruiao.  That gave us the overall victory by one end.  Next up came our neighbours, Durham, and this brought the first wins for Alisha in singles and for Robyn, partnering Megan in level doubles: our second girls pairing had got so close on three occasions already and it was great to see them chalk up a success.  Boys singles wins for Amit and Garrylee, and doubles wins for Ruiao & Zarius and Sarah & Philip gave us a 6-4 overall win.  The last match on Saturday was against Lincolnshire.  Other matches in this group had indicated that this one might be close but we took it 8-2.  Rather surprisingly, Ruiao and Zarius lost their match, bringing to an end their 7 match unbeaten run.  Illness to Megan robbed her and Robyn of a likely win.  So finally to the last match, on Sunday morning against Gloucestershire.  An emphatic 8-2 win left us undefeated in the group and confirmed our final position at 32^nd.

The whole event was won by the team from Buckinghamshire, which just edged home after a 5-all match against Yorkshire which they won by 17 points.  We did have a tenuous connection with the top group, in that our former player and national champion Ira Banerjee led Hampshire into a strong third place.  Well done to her – and of course to Bucks.

Overall, it has to be said that this was a little disappointing, as we had thought mid-20s to be eminently achievable.  Our performance against Shropshire, who finished in 25^th place, can justify that.  However, despite the preparation and practice sessions, a number of the players still found the matches on the first couple of days to be a daunting proposition.  That they finished strongly is to their credit but we need our team to be more competitive in the second round matches if we are to match our performances with our aspirations.  The same girls will all be available for next year but we need to develop more strong boys in support of the undoubted potential of our two under 15s (Amit and Philip), who are well capable of playing at national level.

Saturday lunchtime had seen an interesting experience for one of the team when Garrylee was apprehended by an officer of the law for … well, being his usual cheeky self.  Being only a young man who is small in stature, he was not finding it easy to look the officer in the eye: had he done so earlier, he might well have twigged that it was all a put-up job, with Ken getting his own back for an earlier indiscretion by Garrylee.  The rest of the team, looking on from a discreet distance, could not hide their delight.

Many thanks to Ken for managing and driving; to Alison for looking after the girls; to Rob for coaching; to Tom and Dan for general support; to them all for dedicating four days of their time to enable our team to attend this great event; and to the supporters – for their support.

In the girls doubles, she was paired with Safia Khumji of Oxfordshire as the second seeds.  Again, all group games were won with relative ease but they came up against the Morjaria sisters in the final which went to the Bucks pair 15-12, 15-4.  Well done Asmita!

And she has followed this up with another win at the Margaret Tipton Under 12 tournament in Berkshire.

• Playing on a non-slip court
• Playing on a sprung wooden surface
• Net posts in the correct position (and they stay there)
• Nets at the right height (and they stay there)
• Consistent dark green background and no windows (so you can see the shuttle)
• Lots of space around the courts
• Heating!
• Superb changing facilities
• Café and Meeting room
• Wifi

In the next two months a physiotherapy service, gym and a range of fitness classes will also be available.

Courts can be booked for clubs (St Gabriels, Jesmond Dene, British Telecom and the Tyneside Sharks are committed to the summer) or for individuals.

For more details, including court fees,  visit www.tynesidebadmintoncentre.co.uk