visit our website suttoncoldfieldobserver.co.uk SUTTON COLDFIELD OBSERVER, Friday, June 21, 2013 155SSX-eO1-S2 [SSX]

SPORT ROUND-UP

FOUR OAKS TENNIS CLUBwill be hosting their 18thLTA Ratings Tournamentfrom Sunday, June 30 toSaturday, July 13,sponsored by BradstoneProducts. Local players areinvited to enter the eventwhich will span the 10 LTArating divisions frombeginner level to topnational standard player.Top seed will be Four Oaksmember 17-year-old HarryBusby who is 64th in theBritish national rankings.Harry trains in the HighPerformance national juniorsquad at Edgbaston Prioryand in August will join hiselder brother Jack in theUSA to combine his tennisand academic studies.Enter online via the LTAwebsite or contacttournament referee VicBrown on 07969 171690 oremail Vic_brown1@hotmail.com

PENNS TENNIS CLUB areurging players andspectators to attend thesecond Great MidlandsSportsco Tennis Open 2013next month. The tournamentruns from Sunday, July 21to Friday, July 26 and is anLTA Grade 4 event. DaveBishop, sponsor of theevent, said: “Thetournament went well lastyear and our plan is tomake this annual event akey tournament in thenational tennis calendar.We are looking forward towelcoming players from allover the UK and hope thatour local players will do usproud.” To enter thetournament, register on lineusing the Tournament Code:WAR13S0564 atwww.lta.org.uk,pennstennisclub.com or instore at Sportsco, TheLanes Shopping Centre,Birmingham Road, WyldeGreen.

LITTLE ASTON TENNISCLUB held its ladiesdoubles qualifyingtournament recently and,after a very competitive day,two pairs made theSeptember finals – LynnKirby/Kim Kong and KarenKirby/Denise Grundy. Inleague action for the club,Little Aston men's secondteam pairings of PeteSutton/Terry Rowe and LozOrmond/Steve King beatColeshill 4-0. The ladies’team, meanwhile, bouncedfrom a 4-0 defeat toStreetly’s third team towhitewash the fourth team4-0.

BOLDMERE TENNIS CLUBheld its Rogers Cup mixeddoubles tournamentrecently, which was won bythe duo of ChristineKimberly and Tim Cave withthe pairing of Vicki Denhamand Sam Sansome finishingrunners-up.

TENNISS H O RT S

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Blues banish bad memoriesby winning in Woolacombe

Blues were held to three suc-cessive draws which, nonethe-less, secured their place in thefinal, a re-match against Col-ro n .

The final was a much closeraffair than the earlier round,an exciting and tense match inwhich the Blues produced alate equaliser with a fantasticstrike by Ajay Pammenter tomake it 1-1 and send the tiethrough to the dreaded pen-alties once more.

This time, a series of coolly-taken spot-kicks combinedwith some fine goalkeepingsaw the Blues home and set uprapturous on-field celebra-tions as the ghost of the pre-vious year’s final was laid tore s t .

The Blues squad of JacobHarding-George, James Don-aghue, Adam Perks, SamPalmer, Matt Freer, EdoardoBisconti, Matt Rimmer, AjayPammenter, James Pugh andinjured stars Alex Smith andRowan Dickinson are picturedcollecting the trophy fromformer West Ham starHar tson.

SUTTON Town Juniors Bluesunder-11s made a triumphantreturn to the recent annualfootball tournament inWoolacombe, Devon, winningthe competition in unbeatenfashion and receiving thetrophy from former Wales aceJohn Hartson.

The Blues suffered theheartbreak last year of dom-inating the final but being un-able to put the ball in the netand ultimately losing out in apenalty shoot-out.

However, they put this dis-appointment behind them,despite being limited throughinjuries to a squad of just nineplayers, thereby having nosubstitutes availablethroughout a gruelling tour-nament of eight 25-minutegames in two days.

They nevertheless comfort-ably won all four games on theopening day, including a 5-0defeat of local rivals Colron.

Tiredness and the absenceof available substitutes tooktheir toll on the second day as

JUNIOR FOOTBALL

Romulus under-14s won theMidland Junior Premier LeagueMajor Cup, beating a verystrong Aylestone Park team.The Roms were 1-0 down after a

closely-contested first half butdominated the second periodand goals from Brandon Jonesand Joe Webb sealed thevictory.

PAGET APPEAL: PagetRangers are looking tostrengthen their existingunder-16s side ahead of thenew season. Anyoneinterested in joining, shouldcall John Somers on 07786428791.

SUTTON SEARCH: SuttonUnited under-11s (year 6) arelooking for new players in allpositions. All players arewelcome to attend training.For further details, call Jamieon 07931 426139.

CASTLE CALL: Castle ValeJKS under-14s are looking forplayers, including agoalkeeper, for the 2013/14season. The side plays inDivision One of the LichfieldLeague and trains onSaturdays at 10.30am atFarnborough Road in CastleVale. Anyone interested injoining the side should callSimon on 07960 843265 orBarry on 07926 845475.

FOOTBALLS H O RT S

Duo experience mixed fortunes at Snettertoning lap and had climbed to sixthspot at the chequered flag.

Fortunes were reversed inrace two as Depper startedfrom pole but spun off as a trackmarker had holed his radiator,while Lines, despite starting atthe back of the grid, was intothe top ten within a lap.

Gradually he picked off hisrivals, climbing to seventh atthe end of lap four beforeformer champion Phil Housewas his final victim on theBentley Straight, as hesnatched fourth with threelaps to go.

“Another lap and I would

have had third, but I just didn’tquite get the space to try. I hada nose inside but if I stayedthere we both might have goneof f,” he said.

Both Depper and Lines alsocontested the VAG Trophy inanother pair of Golfs, with theformer seeing a huge lead atthe front disappear when histurbo failed.

Lines, meanwhile, workedhis way up from fifth on theopening lap to third at thefinish in torrential rain.

In race two, Lines againclimbed to a solid fourth, withDepper 1.8secs down in fifth.

HARD work and perseverancebrought little reward for theSutton Coldfield MaximumKPM pairing of Stewart Linesand Martin Depper in the VWRacing Cup at Snetterton.

Having qualified third forrace one, it all went wrong forLines in the assembly area ashis car would not start and hejoined the race a lap down butstill made two places to finish21st.

Depper, meanwhile, quali-fied 15th on the grid but was upto tenth by the end of the open-

M O T O R S P O RT

TENNIS: Sutton Coldfield TennisClub duo Frankie George andMack Holtom proved they werereal aces by shining at theWarwickshire U12 Girls AEGONTeam Tennis Competition. Thefinal match was againstBeechwood from Coventry andboth George and Holtom wontheir singles matches 6-1 and 6-2 respectively. That clinchedfirst place overall after animpressive record in thecompetition in which they wonnot just all 18 of the matchesthey played but every set too,losing only 19 games out of atotal 127 between them. Suttonhead coach Chris Johnson said:“This is a fantastic effort fromboth Frankie and Mack. Winningtheir matches convincinglythroughout the competition hasgiven them a lot of confidence.”

Super Smith surges toMidlands gold medal

Price, 13, competed in sevenevents over the champion-ships, finishing in fifth andsixth place in the 100m fly andfreestyle respectively. In the400m freestyle, he dropped hispersonal best by eight secondsas well as taking four secondsoff his 200m backstroke time.

Campbell set two freestylePBs in the 14-year age group100m and 200m distances with1.00.42mins and 2.13.37minsrespectively, while Richard-son, 13, also lowered her 200mbackstroke best time by asecond.

Mee, 11, improved her 100mbackstroke best time to1.24.74mins while Turnbull,also 11, sliced three seconds off

her best time with a1.21.74mins swim and 13-year-old Dolan was just outside herPB in the 100m freestyle.

In the 12-year age group,Holder also set a PB in thesame event with in 1.16mins.She also improved her 200mbackstroke time and reducedher 100m free time down to1 . 0 7 . 8 4 m i n s.

Rachel Wilson, 14, qualifiedfor four events, competing inthe 100m and 200m fly and200m and 400m freestyle whileAristea Knight, 12, andElmena Saunders, 14, com-peted in the 200m breaststrokeand freestyle.

Although their trainingtime is divided betweenBoldmere and City of Birm-ingham coaches there werefive ‘Development Squad’swimmers competing thisyear in City colours – LeoKarski, Roan Griffiths, LilyWood, Alexandra Bartley andHarriet Gordon.

Karski had a very impress-ive championship, winningthe 11-year-old BAGCATs(British Age Group Category)top boy award after claimingtriple gold in the 200m and400m Freestyle and 400m IMalong with three silvers in the100m freestyle, 200IM and200m Fly.

Championship debutantsBartley and Woods, both 10,also impressed with theformer picking up five medals;200m free (gold), 200m IM and400m free (silver) and 100mfree and 400m IM (bronze),with the latter taking the goldin the 100m free and bronze inthe longer 400 free.

By STEVE HARLOWSwimming correspondent

ELEVEN youngsters repres-ented Boldmere SwimmingClub at the recent British GasASA Midland 2013 Age GroupChampionships at Coventry.

There were five champion-ships debutants – Anya Mee,Hannah Turnbull, MeganHolder, Georgina Dolan andBen Smith – along with pre-vious qualifiers AristeaKnight, Laura Richardson,Matt Price, Rachel Wilson,Elmena Saunders and BenCampbell.

Having learned to swimwith Boldmere from the age offive, Smith has progressedthrough the club and was theyoungest to qualify for thechampionships in two eventsin the 10-year-old age group,despite a rule change that re-quired all 10-year-olds toachieve the 11-year-old qual-ifying times.

With meeting the qualifyingtimes an achievement in itself,his medal-winning perform-ances were all the more im-p re s s ive.

Having set his qualifyingtime in a short course 25mpool, it was Smith’s first 400mindividual medley competi-tion in a long course 50m poolwhich saw him win the goldmedal in such a tough event.

He then followed this, in hissecond event on the lastSunday, with a 1.3second per-sonal best in the 100m free-style to take the silver medalin a time of 1.10.86mins.

SWIMMING

Above: Midland Age GroupChampionship 400m individualmedley gold medallist BenSmith. Picture by Steve Harlow