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And so, another year has gone already and it’s off to Nottingham for the 53^rd running of the Under 18 Inter County Tournament.  With a mainly young and inexperienced team, and lacking really strong singles players, we had no great expectations other than not finishing in the bottom group.  Unfortunately, the number of competing counties was down by three to 32 and several of our closer competitors from recent years were missing.  It was clearly going to be tough but two good wins saw us into 27^th place, the same as last year.  Our new County Coach Martin Fagan was pretty pleased with the overall level of performances, as were his assistants Alison Thompson and Jamie Tinnion. Continue reading →

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Success in the regional round has meant that the boys from Gosforth Academy and the girls from Emmanuel College, Gateshead, have made it through to the Finals weekend of the National School Championships at the end of April.  And six of the players are from our county squads.  Vikram and Jai Nayyar, Tom Cox and Finlay Smith are in  the Gosforth team: and moreover, their team is managed by our top Under 18, George Moran.  The Emmanuel team features sisters Natalie and Katrina Ho.

Very well done to them all – and the best of luck for their Finals.

There was success for two of our girls in the recent Northumberland Under 17 Silver tournament.  This had been due to take place at the start of March but unfortunately had to be cancelled because of the “Beast from the East”.  A small window in the calendar enabled it to be rescheduled a fortnight later.  Although some of the original entrants could not make the new date and the girls’ entries were lower than we would have liked, there were a few additional players to take some of the vacated places. Continue reading →