4 boys and 4 girls teams showcased how great tennis is at the Tees Valley School Games Final.
Teams from across the area had qualified through to the main event on July 12 to see who would become the Tees Valley Champion. The event was for Year 7 & 8 and was played in fantastic spirit throughout the day.
The day started off with the Haka dance from some Darlington primary school aged children. This was an energetic opening games ceremony and spectators were thrilled by the display. Following the Haka, Sarah Borwell who holds the current Mixed Doubles Commonwealth Bronze Medal gave an inspirational speech to the youngsters about hard work, determination needed to exceed in your chosen sport but also about the importance of having fun.
Fun was what all the players, spectators and other officials had and this was echoed by Jean Lordon who is the Executive Director for Tees Valley Sport who attended the event at Tennis World with other VIP’s.
It was great because you know the sign of a good event when it is almost running itself and this was down to the whole team involved from Tees Valley and Tennis World. In fact things went so well the matches were finished early so we decided to do the last 45 minutes of fun games like ‘Around the world,’ ‘bring on, get off,’ along with doubles champions. Jo, Sarah, Matthew and Foz made sure the energy didn’t wane with all 32 competitors and volunteers on the front 3 hard courts having an absolute blast!
The key for the event to run smoothly was the volunteers who umpired the matches and they really were invaluable.
Claire Tennyson, who is a local School Game Organiser from Redcar and Cleveland highlighted the feedback that they had received,
“All of the players said the tennis event went really well and they enjoyed everything about it!”
The final results saw Stockton win both the girls and boys events respectively. Please see below the final placements,
Girls Event
1st = Stockton
2nd = Redcar and Cleveland
3rd = Middlesbrough
4th = Darlington
Boys Event
1st = Stockton
2nd = Middlesbrough
3rd = Redcar and Cleveland
4th = Darlington
Tees Valley is 1 of 46 county festivals taking place across the country over the summer.
Paul Williams, Schools Tennis Manager at the Tennis Foundation added,
“A key priority for British Tennis is to grow the base of the game and that means more young people, playing more often. Congratulations to everyone who participated at the School Games event this year and we look forward to seeing more even schools and young people taking part in the years to come.”
The School Games was created to encourage young people to play more competitive sport in school as part of plans to leave a lasting legacy from the London 2012 Olympics.
Young people taking part in the School Games will have the chance to compete in a range of Olympic and Paralympic sports with competitions progressing from school up to national levels.
For more information on the Tennis Foundation’s support for primary, special and secondary schools please visit schools tennis.