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Our monthly England Water Polo club news round-up is out! -

Welcome to our June edition of Water Polo News in which we try to capture what has been going on with water polo in England over the last month.

May has been a special month where we have basked in the sunshine and enjoyed three Bank Holidays.  We have also seen the coronation of King Charles III and what better way to celebrate this event than with water polo tournament at the outdoor Sandford Parks Lido. Here the GB 2006 girls, England U21 (training for the Home Nations), Cheltenham U16 and Senior Women and Bristol senior women enjoyed a great day of water polo.  There was a wet start to the day but the sun tried to come out in time for the coronation and matches through the afternoon into the evening.  Special thanks to the officials, Max Gerasimov and Chris Tubby, and all the volunteers who helped on the table and to organise the event.”

Coronation Tournament at Sandford Parks Lido

Bristol Senior Women

The Champions Cup took place over the weekend of 13/14 May when the country’s top teams competed for the last major trophy of the season.   The clubs competing for the women’s trophy were City of Manchester, Hucknall, Liverpool and Otter.  In the men’s event were City of Manchester, Penguin, Polytechnic and Sutton & Cheam.

In the women’s event, City of Manchester enjoyed a comfortable win over Liverpool (16 goals to 6 goals) to qualify for the final.  Otter defeated Hucknall 10 goals to 5 and the scene was set for a tense final.  The final did not disappoint.  It was a close run and exciting match with Otter pulling out all the stops to win 8 goals to 6 and take the title.  Congratulations Otter!  Liverpool beat Hucknall 13 goals to 9 to take third place.

Champions Cup winners, London Otter.

In the men’s event, City of Manchester were drawn against Penguin in the qualifying round.  This promised to be an exciting match as the two sides had met three times before this season with two draws and a one goal win for Penguin.  The match was suitably tense with the northern team coming out on top with a 12 goal to 11 final score.  In the other qualification match Polytechnic enjoyed a comfortable 17 goal to 7 victory over Sutton & Cheam.

In the final, the League champions Polytechnic crowned their season with a 10 goal to 7 victory over City of Manchester.  West London Penguin came third after defeating Stoon & Cheam 13 goals to 7.

Champions Cup winners Polytechnic

We would also like to mention the Girls’ U16 London Water Polo Winter League which was played earlier this year.  The competition took place over two weekends with each of the four teams playing each other twice.  Out of the eight matches, West London Penguin Girls’ team were undefeated for seven matches and drew the last one.  They were crowned champions of the U16s event for the 2022-2023 season.  Very well done girls; a great achievement and sorry that we haven’t mentioned your success before.

West London Penguin girls’ U16 team

May also saw the opening rounds of the U15 London Water Polo Summer League.  Congratulations to Hillingdon who got off to a very strong start with three wins from three.

Hillingdon U15 squad

Hillingdon’s U13 squad were in action in the U13 event and they also celebrated three wins from three.  Good luck for the rest of the tournament.

Hillingdon U13 squad

The Annual BWPL Awards took place in May.  Special congratulations go to Denry Leighton who is this year’s winner of the Dave Warriner Memorial Trophy for outstanding service to the League and the sport in general.  Denry will be known to many for his longstanding work as a table official.

Denry Leighton hard at work!

We finish off with news of one of our clubs Cheltenham, who were at the finals of the Nordic League. Cheltenham referee was honoured to be appointed to the very tight final between local Slovakian side KVP Novaky and Lithuanian national champions EVK Zaibas. Well done Jonny!

Referee Jonny Richards of CSWPC

That’s it for this month’s round up of club news.  We are always happy to publicise news from clubs around England so if you have any news you would like to share, please let us know by emailing ah@waterpoloengland.org

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