Three schools from around Berwick nearly blew the Swan Leisure Centre's roof off Tuesday June 19th!
Dave Pick who organised the event along with Pippa Hawes, Jo Cunliffe and the young volunteers from Tweedmouth Middle School could not believe the amount of noise the young players made in their excitement whilst competing in the Tony Blair Sports Foundation / Sainsbury's School Games Year 3 Tennis Challenge Cup.
The three schools included St Mary's, Ford along with Holy Trinity and they created an atmosphere that could have filled Centre Court at Wimbledon!
First off were the matches, where the boys and girls competed first to 10 points. All the spectators were really impressed by their super fast feet, along with the forehand and backhand rallies! A huge well done to the teachers and local School Game Organiser, Dave Pick for their pre competition sessions with the youngsters!
Following the matches came the skills and wow wow wow what electricity the youngsters created! Jo and Pippa couldn't even hear the whistle never mind the tin cans being knocked down in their quest to add as many scores to their totals as possible! The other skills included egg and spoon race, popcorn, hit into and throw into the bucket. We concluded the circuit with some fun races including the 'Sandwich Race' and 'Caterpiller Race!'
Once Dave, Jo, Pippa and the players had caught their breath we totalled up the scores and amazingly there was only 8 points difference between the 1st and 3rd school! A true reflection of how close the whole competition had been.
Furthermore we could not have ran the competition without the fabulous young volunteers who had come from Tweedmouth Middle School. Around 16 volunteers got straight into the event, encouraging the young players, helping Dave and overall being super ambassador's! Young people like those at the event are invaluable and they should be proud of what they achieved. Their future is definitely bright if they continue displaying the qualities that shone through at the schools event!
Here's the final results,
1st - St Mary's (37 points)
2nd - Holy Trinity (35 points)
3rd - Ford (29 points)
St Mary's qualify through to the Northumberland County Final taking place on Tuesday July 2nd at Tennis @ Churchill in Wallsend. We wish them luck!