For those that have been involved in playing Norfolk Junior County Tennis over the years, many will have fond memories of the Lionel Cox Trophy. This year saw the event celebrate its 40th year with our 10, 11 and 12 & under players travelling to the Queenswood School in Hertfordshire to compete against the other East Region Counties. This year also saw the addition of 2 new counties, Berkshire and Oxfordshire making a total of 10 counties in all.
Our boys teams did well on day 1 all winning their first round fixtures and progressed into the forward draw but then fell to the might of Essex or Hertfordshire teams in the 2nd round. Unfortunately none of our girls teams won any of their fixtures on day 1 so all went into a backward round robin draw.
Day 2 saw success for all of our girls teams winning at least 1 of their fixtures which was really encouraging for them whist our boys had mixed fortunes all winning 1 fixture each.
There were some very encouraging performances from Scott Whiting who showed the real 'Lionel Cox' spirit and also Jamie Rice who composed himself very well during his matches this year.
Hanah Wilson Kemsley playing in a 10&U (Green) event for the first time recorded her first Green win, whilst Katherine Barnes won 3 out of her 4 matches over the weekend.
With the results from each girls and boys age groups added together the overall competition winners were Essex and the runners up were Hertfordshire. Norfolk finished 8th overall.
The Norfolk Team was:-
Boys 12 & U (finished 6th) - Harry Ketteringham, Cameron Whiting, Jonathan Hyde
Girls 12 & U (finished 7th) - Katherine Barnes, Maddie Hall, Esme Dickinson
Boys 11&U (finished 7th) - Dani Long-Martinez, Ben Chapman, Jamie Rice
Girls 11&U (finished 9th) - Megan Waghorn, Josephine Jarvis, Emily Barrett
Boys 10&U (finished 5th) - Scott Whiting, Regan Bessey, Fred Whithers
Girls 10&U (finished 9th) - Eleanor Widdows, Millie Brooks, Hannah Wilson-Kemsley