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Round 1 Date: 13/10/2007 Time: 5:00pm Clevedon |
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Round 2 Date: 10/11/2007 Time: 5:00pm Keynsham |
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Round 3 Date: 08/12/2007 Time: 5:00pm EXETER(Riverside) |
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This is a National Competition for swimming clubs. The competition is broken down into areas and Southwold is in the "Western" Speedo League. Because of the number of teams this is then split into 4 Divisions; Premier plus Divisions One, Two and Three. Southwold is in Division Two this year. The competition is tough with the top teams from the Premier Division qualifying for a National Finals competition. The age groups swum are 11/U, 13U, 15/U and Open. There are 3 galas per round to determine the top teams and the 3 rounds are normally held on the second Saturdays in October, November and December. |
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Speedo League |
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Click on picture above for link |
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All the results are now in and Southwold has again come 11th out of the 18 teams in Division 2. This means that we remain in Division 2 for the 2008 season. Note that we came 11th just below Pontypool and Christchurch both of whom we beat in round 3. It was our tough second round that stopped us from moving up to at least 9th position!
Final Positions can be found HERE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Speedo League Round 3 - Saturday 8th December Based upon the results from the previous two Rounds, we were seeded as the lowest placed team in the middle group of 5 teams up against:
Bristol Central Christchurch & New Milton Exmouth Pontypool
As you can see from the previous results below. in Round 1 we just managed to draw with Bristol Central and in Round 2 we were beaten by Exmouth so we expected a really difficult gala.
However - it didn’t quite turn out that way!
Over the years Exeter has been a Roman legionary fortress and a regional capital, a Saxon royal burh, a medieval cathedral city and now the site of a famous Southwold victory! The Southwold barmy army travelled by coach in mostly wet and windy conditions. However, the wind must have been behind us as we arrived over an hour early. This led to a spontaneous shopping expedition- the younger girls took 30mins to buy matching shorts that they could all agree on!. Once poolside the swimmers prepared their fortification – walls of Southwold bags and shopping bags on the inboard side of the pool. We arrived as the lowest ranked squad in this gala. The swimmers were on top form and the races ticked by quickly. Towards the end we knew we were winning, but we didn’t know if the relay squads had enough to hold off the opposition. Quick and safe engages combined with strong individual performances led us to victory! The Southwold barmy army then travelled to McDonalds for the victory dinner. Stuffed with McFlurrys we set off once again back to Yate. The coach had some incredible distorted speakers at the back (ok- it might have been the swimmers), which led to a number of 1970’s renditions of classic rock tracks being almost unrecognisable. The coach’s rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody was particularly memorable – yes Keith! Unofficially - as the sound system was rather primitive, the Southwold team (AND parents) were cheering so loudly, and my hearing is not what it used to be!) the results were:
Southwold 166 Christchurch 152 Pontypool 147 Exmouth 143 Bristol Central 134 (These results are now confirmed - perhaps my hearing isn’t that bad!)
An excellent result and a true “team effort” - all the hard training has really paid dividends!
Results can be found HERE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Speedo Round 2 This was an extremely tough gala as we knew from the start. Excellent performances early through the gala saw us in 3rd place until event 40. At that point we were neck and neck with Clevedon and Exmouth. However, we faded through the final relays and we had dropped to 5th by the finish. We need a strong turn out in the final round to ensure safety in the division.
Swansea - 244 Kingsbridge - 179 Clevedon - 162 Exmouth - 160 Southwold - 147 Caradon - 135
The second round results can be found HERE --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speedo League Round 1 Details of Round 1 results can be found HERE
In one of the most exciting, competitive (and probably the noisiest) of galas that Southwold has been in, it all cam e down to the last relay! Up until then we had been within a point of Bristol Central for fifth position, With a superb set of swims Southwold gained the extra position needed to being us up to equal fourth position. Well done to all those that took part.
Final Points were: CLEVEDON 203 NEWTON ABBOT 198 WEST WILTS FORCE 5 “B” 177 SOUTHWOLD 158 BRISTOL CENTRAL 158 BOURNENMOUTH DOLPHINS “B” 152
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Please ensure that you always arrive at the pool where a gala is taking place at least 15 minutes before the warm up starts. |
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Click HERE for 2006 to 2007 Speedo reports |
