Well what can I say - no Gala's for ages and then one after the other - they are like buses.  Never mind.
This week was the turn of the Diddies and not to be outdone by the performance of our older swimmers our team was well up for it with the coach journey to Solihull.  I know its not very far but it's very good to get everyone ready and especially for team spirit, which once again this week was fantastic.

Last year, we swam twice at Solihull and found the pool a little long for our younger swimmers - they seemed to run out of steam over the last few metres.  This would prove costly to our overall finishing position in the league.  The team, in fact, never swam in a 25m pool which was a little unfair.  This year so far it has been the same - hopefully we will get a chance in a 25m pool.  Stew has worked out that we are in 8th position which is excellent.  A little more hard work and, who knows ,we make the Final.  That would be outstanding.

Anyway here we go with who swam and who did what:

Here's the team
9Yrs - George Hammersley, James Stevenson, Stephen Cole, Josh Evans, Katie Jones, Emma Pay, Nat Dingley, Eva Cook
10Yrs - Jake Knight, Callum Faulkner, Bradley Bridgewater, Lauren Sanders, Kimberley Yates, Emily Tiano, Phillipa Watton
11Yrs - Tom Asprey, Joe Birnie, Sam Tromans, Elliot Barnbrook, Sophie Page, Beth Davies, Phoebe Cook
12Yrs - Ant Parkes, Jake Seed, Matt Jones, Fran Pinchin, Ellie Lord, Hayley Davies Moore, Becky Cole

Event 1 and 2 Phillipa and Bradley, both 6th places but a great effort.  Well done
Event 3 and 4 Katie and Josh, 1st and 5th With the first win of the night.  Well done
Event 5 and 6 11's Medley Relay, 1st and 2nd places well done to both teams, a great effort
Event 7 and 8 Becky and Ant, 2nd and 1st both great swims
Event 9 and 10 Emily and Jake, 2nd and 1st both excellent swims
Event 11 and 12 9's Medley Relay, 1st to the girls and 5th to the lads.  Great effort
Event 13 and 14 11's Freesetyle Relay, 1st and 2nd with the lads just touched out.  Well Done to both teams. 
Event 15 and 16 Fran and Ant, 5th and 2nd, both swimmers putting up a great fight. 
Event 17 and 18 10's Medley Relay 2nd for the girls however due to a faulty takeover the lads were disqualified, better luck next time
Event 19 and 20 Sophie and Tom, both 1st places picking up maximum points.  Well done to you
Event 21 and 22 9's Freestyle Relay 1st and 4th, tough competition here but both teams battled till the end. 
Event 23 and 24 Ellie and Matt, 5th and 4th Well Done better luck next time.
Event 25 and 26 10's Freestyle Relay, 2nd and 5th excellent swims from both teams with George swimming up
Event 27 and 28 Beth and Tom, 2nd and 2nd Tom was just touched out but well done to both swimmers

Points at the half way stage were as follows:
Phoenix               123
Stourbridge          115
Chase                  105
Oswestry               92
Stratford               78
Redditch               65

Event 29 and 30 Katie and George, 1st and 2nd places fantastic swims from the younger team members
Event 31 and 32 Hayley and Sam, both 5th places great effort from both swimmers
Event 33 The girls 8x1 relay 2nd place by 0.4 of a second well done to the girls
Event 34 and 35 Callum and Lauren, 6th and 1st great swims with 1 second separting the top three in Lauren's race
Event 36 and 37 James and Emma, 5th and 3rd well done to both swimmers
Event 38 and 39 12's Freestyle Relay 4th and 3rd with Tom swimming up for the lads
Event 40 and 41 Joe and Phoebe, 3rd and 6th great swims but Joe was just touched out.
Event 42 The boys 8x1 relay 5th place can do better next time
Event 43 and 44 Kim and Jake, 2nd and 4th Well done to our younger swimmers
Event 45 and 46 Eva and George, 4th and 2nd well done
Event 47 and 48 Sophie and Sam, 1st and 3rd well done Sophie and Sam was just touched out of 2nd
Event 49 and 50 12's Medley relay, both 2nd places with Tom swimming up for the boys again
Event 51 The big one.  Katie in first getting us a lead followed by George, Lauren, Jake, Sophie, Sam, Fran and finally Ant.  Second in this one unlucky guys. 

Final Points:

1^st  Phoenix Youth            231
2^nd  Stourbridge A             202
3^rd  Chase                        201
4^th  Oswestry                    171
5^th  Stratford                    151
6^th  Redditch                    102

Well not wanting to blow my own trumpet, drawing lane 4 three times in a row, I must be getting the hang of it.

I think that the team on a whole swam very well.  I may not be able to let everyone have an individual in the next round and some may feel a little hard done by.  However, remember this is a club event and it would be fantastic to make the final.  Points make prizes and I am sure all of you would prefer to make it and who knows there maybe a longer coach journey and I know you all enjoy these.

Finally, I must say all the kids were very well behaved on poolside which is a great reflection on our club.  However both Mark and Myself are a little worried about how the kids want to leave as soon as they have swam.  I would like all the kids to stay until the end if at all possible.  There are three reasons for this.
In the heat of competition it is very difficult to make sure that a particular swimmer has no more events (it really is chaos).  There is no time to look through the programme.  Team support.  Its great at the start but towards the end it seems to die off unless we are far from home and on a coach.  Lets get behind all the kids.  Finally, if for any reason someone is unable to swim in the final events, I cannot use you if you are not there.  This could be very costly and has occurred on numerous occasions.

Thanks to all the helpers again this week, Mark, Stew, Rich, Bridgett, Sue, Steve and of course the assistant Diddy team Manager Alex.

Jason.

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