What a brilliant day out at the Cheshire round of the National Schools Badminton competition. We arrived at Neston HS, aware the competition was going to be tough.
Our KS4 Boys teams were split into two squads, playing five games against each opposition (doubles & singles). One faced Neston (Won 5-0) & St Amselms ‘A’ (Won 5-0) and the other squad faced St Anselms ‘B’ (Won 3-2) and Altrincham Grammar ‘B’ (Lost 0-5).
Each group was then split into a 1st , 2nd & 3rd placed league. We had a squad in the 1st placed and 2nd placed league respectively.
The 2nd placed league squad played Bishops Bluecoat (lost 2-3) and St Anselms ‘A’ (won 3-2); meaning they came 5th in the whole of Cheshire for KS4 boys. This squad included Charlie Belton, Luke Young, Isaac Fung and Chan.
Then the 1st placed squad had to play the reigning champions Altrincham Grammar in the final. They had both their A & B squad in this group, and according to the organiser they win most years, well not this year! We beat their B team 5-0 and everything rested on the final game. A lot of other schools stayed to watch, and the standard was awesome.
Bobby Lai beat the first opponent 15-13.
We then lost the next doubles match (Webber & Pak) 5-15…..
Then stepped Jimmie Lai (Year 9) onto the court. Playing against a player two years older. It’s worth mentioning at this point Jimmie was losing 9-13 and was shattered…. he preserved and battled every point… getting the game back to 14-14… before winning with the last shot.
We were 2-1 up and only needed to win one of our double matches…
Bobby & Pak then went onto win 15-4… winning the group and being announced as KS4 Cheshire Boys Champions!
They were and absolute credit and joy to take and now represent not only CHSC, but Cheshire in the next round on Wednesday 5th March in Bolton against other counties from the North West.
Mr Green
