Reports of the Competitions
by Richard Powell, Manager, Division 1 Squad
and Bernie Miles, Manager, Challenge Shield Squad
Division 1
The players representing the Southern Region at this year’s Inter-Regional competition at Brean Sands all did the Region – and themselves! – proud. Not only in terms of results, although these were a major improvement on last year, but the behaviour, discipline, effort, commitment and team spirit throughout the squad were of the highest order. A quick look at the results table shows us to have been fifth, notionally only one place better than last year, but last year we managed to avoid relegation by only the narrowest of margins, whereas this year, just one more win in the round against East Midlands on Saturday would have seen us in second place!
Every team played its part, and each one had at least one result where they had to fight back from real difficulty to secure a win. KDM and the Juniors (a fairly young team) had to play against established internationals at their respective levels in most of their games, so their results are no disgrace. At the other end of the scale, Foxdale, with 10 wins, were superb, and were very closely followed by Flight Gullivers (9 wins) and Racing GBG (8 wins) – but every team made a solid and valuable contribution.
Our second junior team also performed with credit, gaining five victories for the Devon side that they represented in Division 2 of the main competition.
The two photos attached give some indication of the excellent team spirit throughout both squads. The first is of both squads, plus the “Devon” juniors and their manager, after a brief meeting that everyone got up early to attend on Sunday morning, when a minute’s silence was observed in memory of Wendy Willcox. The other photo is of the last game to finish in the last round (KDM vs Chilterns 2), where virtually the whole of both squads can be seen providing sporting and generous support to KDM, which typified the mutual encouragement throughout the squads during the whole weekend.
Challenge Shield
The Brean Sands Challenge Competition 2004 was contested by 11 Regional Squads. For us, there were 7 Rounds to be played on Saturday and 3 on Sunday (Round 10 on Sunday morning was our “rest” period).
We finished on Saturday evening in 7th place with 13 wins out of 28 matches and a points difference of -32. The Competition ended on Sunday with us still in 7th position with 18 wins out of 40 matches and a points difference of -57. Three of our teams ended with 5 wins out of 10 and one with 3. It is worth noting that overall we won 2 rounds, drew 4 and lost 4.
Our squad was very supportive of each other, staying after matches were completed to watch and encourage other teams still playing. It was also very pleasing to see many of our squad supporting our friends in the Inter-Regional Competition as and when our programme of matches permitted.
I was very pleased with the manner and spirit that our teams brought to the Competition in marked contrast to at least one of the Competition’s more successful Regions. I was particularly pleased that our players who were at Brean Sands for the first time learned to cope with the quite tricky playing surface that is quite unlike anything that we normally encounter.
Finally, I would say that the Southern Region should be proud of their representatives in the Brean Sands Challenge Competition 2004.