It's a clean sweep for Chorley Schools in the Lancashire County Round of the Center Parcs National Schools Badminton Championships.
Youngsters from across Lancashire took part in the Lancashire County Final of the Center Parcs National Schools Badminton Competition this month. Schools from Blackpool, Rossendale, Blackburn, Chorley, Lancaster, Wyre & Fylde, Preston, South Ribble, West Lancashire, Hyndburn / Ribble Valley, Burnley and Pendle competed against each other to become Lancashire County Champions. The Center Parcs National Schools Competition, organised by BADMINTON England is sponsored by Center Parcs and is one of the largest schools badminton events in Europe.
This year's organisers anticipate record entries of 1,800 schools and 25,000 children taking part. The competition is split into four sections with categories for boys and girls in two different age groups. School teams of four played a mixture of singles and doubles games with each school playing each other in a round robin format.
The competitions took place at Thornton Cleveley's Sports Centre, on the 20th January for the Under 14's competitors and 3rd February for the Under 16's competitors.
In the boy's competitions, St Michaels High School was victorious in the years 10/11 competition and Parklands High School from Chorley was victorious in the year 7, 8 & 9 competitions.
In the girl's competitions, it was a clean sweep for St Michaels High School as years 7, 8 &9 and year 10/11 trophies were taken back to Chorley. This is now the second year in which St Michaels High School have represented Lancashire at the North West Regional Round. And we hope they can emulate last year's success of representing the North West at the National Finals.
Both days were greatly enjoyed by those taking part and those spectating, great thanks has to be given to Lee Cadwallader, Competition & Club Link Manager, Wyre & Fylde School Sports Partnership for all of his hard work in organising a fantastic competition.
Winning schools will now go on to represent Lancashire at the North West Regional Round which is being held at Leigh Sports Village on the 7th March 2011. Winners from this competition will progress through to the National Finals which are to take place at Center Parcs, Sherwood Forest over the weekend of the 2nd/3rd April.
Colin Whaley, Sales & Marketing Director at Center Parcs: "Center Parcs is proud to be the main sponsor of the National Schools Championships. We are very excited to be hosting the finals for the third time and look forward to welcoming some of the most promising young badminton players in the country to Center Parcs Sherwood Forest. Congratulations to all those who have made it to the next round and i look forward to watching some keenly contested matches on our courts in April"
If you would like further information on Badminton Development within Lancashire please contact Julia Kelly - BADMINTON England Regional Officer on juliakelly@badmintonengland.co.uk