Welcome to our June Water Polo Club news - May 30, 2018

First off, wasn’t it great to see British water polo featured on Sky Sports for two hours on a Sunday evening?  The channel showed the highlights from this year’s Super Fives including interviews with the team captains who came across as professional and poised.  Internationally in May, our GBR U19 men qualified Europe for the first time in a decade, and both our England Men and U19 Women won the 2018 EU Nations Men’s and Women’s Tournaments. Excellent stuff!

You’ve seen the football, now it’s time for water polo.  The 2018 British Championships, the gateway for clubs to enter European Competition, will take place on 2/3 June at Sandford Parks Lido.  Men’s teams from Manchester, Solihull, Cheltenham and Lancaster will vie for the top spot along with women’s teams from Coventry, Manchester, Liverpool and Otter.  It’s a fantastic location for a fantastic weekend of top class water polo.  Please come along if you can, more info here > www.sandfordparkslido.org.uk

We love to report on water polo clubs enjoying a period of growth. One such club is West London Penguin who have three Under 15 teams playing in the London League Summer Championships this year.  Penguin Hillingdon play in Division 2 with Penguin Laytmer A (The Emperors) and Penguin Laytmer B (The Royals) are playing in Division 3.  The Royals are a relatively new team established in September last year.  We look forward to following their progress.  Do let us know how you get on.

With summer approaching, a feast of international club tournaments is being arranged by Barcelona International Water Polo Academy around Europe.  Here’s two more exciting events being held in and around Barcelona for clubs to consider –

The Barcelona International Turbo Cup – from 6^th – 9^th September at the Montjuic Olympic pool in Barcelona. This tournament is open to men and women teams from all over the world who are aged 18 or over.

Exeter Women’s U19s

You may recall that Exeter Water Polo club entered their male and female under 19 teams in this tournament last year.  The quality of the polo was excellent and the teams played well against strong opposition.  The girls had an outstanding tournament narrowly losing out on the top spot on penalties to take silver.

Beach Water Polo in Palamós – 31^st August – 2^nd  The tournament takes place in the sea in the beautiful Costa Brava.  It is open to mixed teams of all ages.  Each team will play a minimum of five matches.

 For further information on these events please go to www.biwpa.com

Sedgefield Water Polo club are running some free Saturday taster sessions at Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centre commencing 2^nd June from 3pm to 4pm.  If you would like to attend (or know someone who would like to attend) please see the contact details in the flier below.

We couldn’t play water polo without referees and we are always looking for new referees.  A Water Polo Grade D Referees course will be taking place in Chelmsford over the weekend of 23^rd/24^th June at Riverside Leisure Centre, Chelmsford.  Damien Taylor, an international referee, will be running the course.  Candidates can be 15 years old at the time of the course but will need to be 16 when being assessed for their practical.   For more information please contact dean.walker@swimming.org

All England Water Polo Champions 1956

Can you help us fulfill the dying wish of Dennis Edwards?  Dennis, from Hove, died earlier this year aged 79.  He was a talented athlete and one of his favorite activities was water polo.  He was part of the team that won the All England Water Polo Championship in 1956 and his dying wish was to find out what happened to his teammates.  Do you recognise anyone in the picture below?  If so please contact news@theargus.co.uk as they are following up the story.

Our Team Mates in America

With most of our U.S. students returning for the Summer Break we can reflect on the year they have had playing Water Polo for their respective universities.  As reported last month Ashley Castle has been successful in and out of the pool with three academic awards for 2017/18.  He has now obtained the second highest GPA of all male students across all sports at the San José State.

We would like to extend our congratulations to Claire Nixon who graduated from Hawaii this year and for making the Big West Conference Second Team. Hawaii had a great season with a 21-5 win record, and only narrowly missed out on their ticket to NCAAs.  Mhari Nurthen has also been playing for Hawaii and has just completed her freshman year.

Megan Clarke helped Marist College make it all the way to MAAC championship game.  Competition was tough for the Red Foxes and they lost out to the Wagner Seahawkes and so just missed out on their ticket to NCAAs.

Rosie Huck, who plays for Arizona State University “Sun Devils”, also had a great year in and out of the pool. She helped ASU finish the season ranked 5^th in the USA in the final poll of the year.  She also earned a place on the MPSF All-Academic Team for the second year in a row.  Rosie was the team Student of the Year for maintaining an impressive 4.0 GPA.

Kathy Rogers has had a stand-out freshman year at the University of Michigan.  She helped her team make it to the NCAA championships, with a 32-9 season win ratio overall and the 3^rd successive CWPA championship. Kathy ended the season with 35 goals, a Rookie of the Week award and a U-M Academic Achievement Award.  Congrats Kathy.

Well that’s it for this month.  What a month for water polo it has been!  If you have any news about your club that you would like to share please do let me know by emailing me at ah@waterpoloengland.org.

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