Sports Update

Autumn is upon us – the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and muddy sports kit. Once again, we have a bumper line-up of sports news from the younger generation

Sedgefield Tennis Club

Sedgefield Tennis Club is offering all children (and adults!) the chance to try tennis for free at Sedgefield Community College over the winter. Each session will be led by an LTA qualified tennis coach, with all equipment provided. Details of the sessions available are listed on sedgefieldweb.

All lessons must be booked by an adult. For more information, please email Carl Brough at enquiries@sedgefieldtennis.co.uk or call 07980 595956.

Sedgefield Squash Club Juniors

The club was well represented and also very successful, in the 2018 Durham & Cleveland Junior Championships, with four finalists and two county champions! Congratulations to Joseph Billany and Jess Weatherspoon who won the boys’ U13 and girls’ U15 titles respectively. Very well done too, to Mikey Wilson and Ben Wilberforce who narrowly missed out on the mixed U9 and boys’ U17 titles, respectively.

The club now has a roster of junior coaches training the juniors on Saturday mornings and some enthusiastic new faces have joined since sessions resumed in September. If you think that your child might be interested, whether they’re a beginner or thinking of getting back into the sport, the club is keen to hear from you.

As well as those sessions, there’s the Junior Club Afternoon on Sundays from 4 - 5:30pm, giving youngsters a chance to simply enjoy match play, irrespective of whether they’re being coached on Saturdays.

Sedgefield Cricket Club

Sedgefield Cricket Club is encouraging members, along with family and friends, to support junior cricket development from 10.00am - 1:30pm on Saturday 3rd November, by popping along to Coxhoe Leisure Centre and voting for the club’s bid for funding through a local authority backed scheme. A large number of other voluntary organisations will also be in attendance, all pitching for support. Anyone aged 12 and above can vote for more than one of the many deserving good causes and the club hopes to be one of the handful of successful bidders. This is all dependent on securing votes, so please do go along if you can.

The current crop of juniors celebrated their successful 2018 season at a well-attended presentation evening recently, with trophies and certificates galore being awarded to the boys and girls who make up a section that has become the envy of many other clubs. The headline-makers were the U13 squad who were presented with their league winner’s trophy, while several of the other teams had got very close to winning silverware. The biggest success story is the fact that the club has attracted so many families and made itself such a focal point for Sedgefield during the summer months.

Cricket On 19th October, Sedgefield Cricket Club hosted its senior presentation evening, the highlight of which was reliving the 1st XI’s successful promotion season. Well done again!

Sedgefield Youth FC U14s

The team is now six weeks into their new season. After five league games they have won one game, drawn two and lost two, and currently sit mid-table of their Teesside Junior Football Alliance league. In their most recent game (at the time of writing) they took on Darlington 21st All Stars at The Community College. On a bright Sunday morning Sedgefield began the game brightly playing into a stiff and strengthening breeze. Gradually, however, All Stars began to pick up their game, pressing Sedgefield back and, taking advantage of the wind, pumped a stream of balls into the penalty area, creating a number of half chances but failing to take advantage of any of them.

Weathering the storm, Sedgefield came back at Darlington, creating two clear one on one situations in the last ten minutes of the half but shot straight at the keeper both times. Sedgefield gained a just reward for their determined first half defending, scoring second half goals through Oliver Jones and Nick Dexter to run out 2 – 0 winners.

Sedgefield junior parkrun

This successful free 2km event for children aged four to 14, takes place at 9:00am every Sunday morning in Hardwick Park. The run relies on a pool of volunteers and the core team is keen to recruit some new helpers. Roles vary and include barcode scanning, timekeeping and marshalling. No experience is necessary, as the team will provide full support and people can volunteer for any role they feel comfortable in.

The junior parkrun team is also trying to recruit a few additional run directors to be responsible for overseeing the weekly event, again with full support, and with a few more on the roster, each person will only need to commit to one Sunday every six to eight weeks. For more information, contact the team via the Sedgefield junior parkrun Facebook page or email sedgefield-juniorshelpers@parkrun.com. If children want to take part in junior parkrun, they can be registered free at www.parkrun.org.uk.

Squash

The county recently held its annual Masters tournament (it used to be the Veterans, but Masters feels more complimentary!) and Sedgefield’s Patrick Billany and Nigel Musgrave reached the finals of their age group competitions. Sadly, both missed out on the title, which means that Patrick’s son Joseph has the family bragging rights for the time being after his success in the junior championships!

Talking of veterans, there was some ‘classic’ kit and equipment on parade during World Squash Day on 13th October, when squash club members donned retro gear and used old wooden rackets, raising money for the World Squash Federation's nominated charities in the process. Space doesn’t allow us to show the full glory of their get-ups, but you’ll find the photograph on sedgefieldweb in glorious Technicolor, as they used to say! As ever, membership enquiries should go to Sue Smith at curlietailz@aol.com.