Croydon Amphibians U19’s Water polo Team were unlucky to just miss out on attending their fourth ASA Nationals Finals in as many years. The squad finished third in their group with only the top two going to the finals in Manchester.
Croydon travelled to Lancaster this weekend knowing this would be a tough group to qualify from with last year’s National Champions Manchester and this year’s hot favourites to win, Exeter, both drawn in the same group. However the Croydon squad was packed with talent and experience of its own with the squad having already won two National titles during their Junior career and some of the squad runners up at last year’s tournament but the matches went as the form book with both Manchester and Exeter winning their encounters against Croydon to confirm their places in the finals.
This left Croydon a game against Bristol, whose senior team is also in the Super five premier league , to finish many of the players final junior game in winning form.
In a tense encounter it took an assured Captains performance for Matt Helps to marshal the strong Bristol centre forward attack along with outstanding defensive displays from the energetic Ross James , Ben Curtis, and Tom Kane aligned well with William Allgar in the Croydon goal. Upfront with tricky wing play from Ethan Stauton, Jack Watts and Thomas Gibson set the platform for Spiros Gkogka, Alex Waller, Frazer Briers and Charlie Briers upfront each putting in a heroic performance to earn Croydon a 11-5 victory over their West Country opponents.
Afterwards Mickey Helps who had coached many of the team since they started competing at junior level said “Having had the privilege to coach this bunch of talented lads through an extremely successful golden era for the team, making three National finals in four years winning two National titles, not making it to the finals this year is disappointing. However we knew qualification would be tough from this group and I don’t want it to distract from some extremely spirited team performances from a group of talented lads. They all have great futures in this sport.”
He went on to say” I’d also like to say thank you to Martin Waller (Assistant Manager) and Colin James (Team Manager) for their support during this period along with the support of Chris Martin (Croydon Amphibians) and Surrey County Water Polo. All have helped create this success.