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Welcome to our May England Water Polo news -

Welcome to our May edition of Water Polo News in which we aim to showcase some of the amazing activities undertaken by our clubs in the last month.

First off, we would like to offer our massive congratulations to our BWPL Super 5’s champions. In the women’s competition, City of Manchester defeated Liverpool 12-9 and Otter 11-10 to take home their fourth consecutive title. This is a fantastic achievement, and our congratulations go to the team. London Otter finished second with Hucknall in third place.

City of Manchester Women.

The Men’s Super 5’s competition was exciting to the end. At the start of the final weekend there were three teams that could potentially win the title: City of Manchester, Penguin and London Polytechnic. In the end it was London Polytechnic who won both of their final games to take their first Super 5s title, and their first top-flight honour since 1994. Congratulations. Penguin took the silver with Manchester taking bronze.

London Polytechnic (image credit Trevor Hyde/BWPL)

Congratulations also go to Izzy Howe who was the Women’s 2023 Super 5’s Top Goal Scorer with a grand total of 30 goals – an impressive 3.8 goals per match average. Well done Izzy!.

Top Goal scorer Izzy Howe

Watford Water Polo have had a good month in the London Water Polo Winter League. Their U18 Women defeated Hillingdon, Croydon and Penguin Latymer to be crowned Champions of the U18 event for the 2022-2023 season.

Watford Water Polo – Winter League U18 Champions

The Men’s 1st team finished off their Winter League campaign with a win against Chelmsford in the final.

Watford – Winter League Champions

A number of clubs have taken advantage of the Easter break and school holidays to travel abroad to play in tournaments. Watford U12s travelled to Tarragona in Spain to take part in the HaBaWaBa. They played some excellent water polo in beautiful surroundings.

Watford U12 en-route to Tarragona

The team did really well finishing silver in Group B.

Watford U12s in action under blue skies!

The West London Penguin Boys’ U16s travelled to Malta to take part in the Sirens ASC International Water Polo Tournament.

West London Penguin U16s

Meanwhile, back home Penguin hosted the U17 girls from Rari Nantes Carmogli for training and playing matches.

Penguin U17 girls and friends from Rari Nantes Carmogli

 

Also travelling abroad this Easter were the City of Coventry women who competed in the Gauteng Invitational Tournament in Johannesburg, South Africa. It looks like they had an amazing trip in an amazing country, and they finished in fifth place!

City of Coventry WPC on tour!

April has also seen the finals of the National Age Group Championships at the Sunderland Aquatics Centre. In each competition, four teams came through the preliminary rounds to compete in the finals. In the U17 Boys’ event Worthing, defending champions, topped group C with five wins from five in the preliminary round to make it to the finals. Exeter finished second in group C after a narrow (9-7) defeat to Worthing to make it to the finals. City of Manchester topped group B with another 100% record and secured their place in the finals with West London Penguin who won Group A with four wins from four.

In the first semi-final City of Manchester put on an impressive show to defeat Exeter 18-2. West London Penguin, the 2019 champions, then ousted the defending champions, Worthing 19-6, to claim their place in the final.

City of Manchester U17s

In the final West London Penguin proved too strong as they put on a dominant display to regain the U17 title defeating City of Manchester 13-4. Worthing took the bronze the medal.

West London Penguin U17 Boys NAG 2023 Champions

In the girls’ U17 competition City of Manchester topped group A with victories against Worthing, Croydon and City of Sheffield and one draw. City of Sheffield finished second in group A having missed out on the top spot by one point after wins against West London Penguin and Worthing and a defeat to City of Manchester. Last year’s runners up, Cheltenham came to the competition with the best record in qualifying topping Group B after winning all their matches. City of Liverpool came to the finals after defeating Watford, Kirkintilloch & Kilsyth and losing to Cheltenham.

In the first semi-final, City of Manchester defeated City of Liverpool 19-9 to claim their place in the final. Cheltenham qualified for the final after their victory against City of Sheffield 20-11 in the second semi-final.

City of Manchester U17s

In the final Cheltenham came back from 11-14 down at the end of the third quarter to defeat City of Manchester 20-17. An amazingly close match! Sheffield defeated Liverpool 12-11 to take the bronze medal.

Cheltenham U17 Girls NAG 2023 Champions

In the U19 National Age Group, the finalists in the Boys’ event were Cheltenham who performed strongly in the qualifiers winning all three of their matches in Group B. They overcame Watford, Grantham and Barnet to keep top slot. Sedgefield impressed in their qualifying round with their 100% record to top Group A. They defeated City of Manchester, Bridgefield, Caledonia, City of Birmingham and City of Sheffield. Worthing topped Group C with three wins from three against Invicta, West London Penguin and Northampton. Caledonia qualified for the finals after finishing runners-up in Group A.

In the first semi-final, Cheltenham held off Sedgefield in a closely fought match (13-12) to qualify for the finals where they faced Worthing who had defeated Caledonia in their semi-final. The final proved to be yet another tight match, with Worthing holding off a late Cheltenham comeback to win the U19s boys’ final , while Sedgefield took bronze.

Worthing Water Polo U19 Boys NAG 2023 Champions

In the Girls’ event the finalists were City of Liverpool who had a strong qualifying round winning all five of their qualifying matches against City of Sheffield, Otter, Worthing, Bristol and Kirkintilloch & Kilsyth. Defending champions, City of Manchester made it into the semi-finals on goal difference after securing five points from their four qualification games. Cheltenham qualified top of group A after their narrow victory over City of Manchester with 100% record also defeating City of Birmingham, West London Penguin and Watford. London Otter qualified as runners up in Group A after a narrow defeat to City of Liverpool but won all four of the remaining matches.

Cheltenham U 19s

In the first semi-final, Cheltenham played a close match with Otter to get into the final where they faced City of Manchester who qualified after defeating City of Liverpool 21-9. In the end City of Manchester were just too strong and they defeated Cheltenham 16-10 to take gold. Congratulations also to Harriet Dickens whose performance earned her the MVP and top scorer awards. Liverpool took the bronze with a 12-8 win over Otter.

City of Manchester U19 Girls NAG 2023 Champions

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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