The Suffolk Under-17 badminton team supported by Harrod UK, competed in the Harrod Inter Counties Tournament [ICT] held at Nottingham University over 4 days during the Easter holidays. This event was contested by 39 county teams from all over the British Isles including teams from Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, sadly this year there were no representatives from the Channel Islands.

 

TEAM: Tommy Banham, Charlotte Clouting, Bethany Fox, Kym Gormer, George Isherwood, Calum Johnson, Claudette Reis, James Scott, Timothy Scott (replaced James Clouting), & Freya Webb.

 

Our 2010 ICT prep was going very well, until less than two weeks before the event, James Clouting broke his ankle. Timothy Scott was asked to be his replacement. This was not the end of the disruption to our ICT plans, David Driver suffered a domestic disaster of a serious garage fire which meant he needed to stay behind until Thursday evening to sort out important issues. Tony Isherwood travelled up to Nottingham early on Thursday to help me support the team for the first two matches & I would like to thank him for his valuable support. Thanks must also go to Matt from Striptees UK, our kit supplier, who pulled out all the stops and managed to get Tim’s extra kit to us in the nick of time at very short notice.

The event is organised into three rounds, with each group’s finishing position important in deciding which group the team would be competing in next and ultimately the final position. Suffolk’s first group consisted of Lincolnshire, Surrey and Shropshire. Our first match was against Lincolnshire and we had a strong resolve to upset the seedings made by the organising committee which would give us a great chance of a top half finish which last happened in 2001. We felt that a win against the higher seeded Lincs was well within our capabilities and we proved this with an excellent 6 - 4 win. We knew that our second match against Surrey would be tough as they had some very highly ranked boys. The team played with confidence and after two 3-set losses Suffolk managed to win the firsts girl’s doubles giving a 1 - 9 loss. This score didn’t really reflect how well everyone played. A win in our evening match would take us into the top half and although other teams and officials said it would be a Suffolk win we approached it with caution, not wanting to count our chickens.  We shouldn’t have been concerned as very solid performances gave us a convincing 8 -2 victory and a minimum finishing position of 20th for the first time in 9 years. The team very sensibly headed straight to bed after the late finish, whilst I started the kit washing!

The second day found us in an unfamiliar position of playing against the ‘Big Boys’. Our opposition in this group comprised of Buckinghamshire, Durham, Essex & Warwickshire. Our new ambition, having made it to the top half, was to win a minimum of one of these matches to take us at least into the final group playing for 13th to 16th place. Bucks were quite highly rated going into the tournament and having played them during the season we knew they were strong. A highly competitive match resulted in a very creditable 3 -7 loss. After a break, we returned to the Jubilee campus full of determination for our match against Durham. They had made it into the top half from what was a weaker first round group and hadn’t had convincing winning scores, we were full of confidence that a win was possible. After a slow start which saw us 0-2 down, we came back with excellent performances to end up 6 - 4 winners. With spirits high, we tackled Essex next, and with a change in the playing order were at one stage 4 – 1 up giving Essex a bit of a shock. Unfortunately, we could not hold on and ran out 4 – 6 losers, but happy to have worried our opposition. The final match of the evening, again a late 8.30 start, saw us take on Warwickshire, a very tough proposition. With one mixed match going to 3 sets although not in our favour, the team spirit was good with everyone giving the players loud vocal support. Two excellently fought boys singles gave us one win but we weren’t able to build on this, with the match ending up as 1 – 9 loss.

Our final group playing for 13th to 16th place put us against Devon, Staffodshire & Dorset. Devon was strengthened by having the current under-15 National Champion in their midst however a spirited Suffolk performance took us so close but finally we ran out 4 – 6 losers, a score line which was repeated in the last 2 matches.

With a final finishing position of 16th, a full 10 places higher than our excellent 26th finish last year, it cannot be stressed enough how every team member made a full and valid contribution to the team’s success. Great team spirit, good fun, hard work and great performances from everyone contributed to a wonderful tournament. I confess to worrying that if we did make it into the top half that the matches would be too strong for us, but the match scores and the way the team played showed that Suffolk can compete with the best of them and I couldn’t be more proud of how the team supported each other to such a great success. Mention has to be made of the invaluable contributions over the last 4 years made by Freya Webb & James Scott who this year played their last ICT. It will be strange without them!

The managers, Lisa Jacobs and David Driver would like to thank the team for all their efforts and the player’s parents for their support over the whole season. With half of this year’s ICT team still young enough to be considered for selection for 2011 we hope that an even higher position may be possible.

 

Our ambitions are to show that Suffolk is a badminton county to be respected.

 

Lisa Jacobs Team Manager

 

Inter-Counties Tournament 2010