Team manager Julie Burvill reports on this year’s National County Team Championships, in Sheffield, the blue ribbon team event in the competitive swimming calendar.
Forty counties come together annually in Sheffield to battle it out and seek new rankings for the season ahead. Many of our future Olympians and British junior teams are also out in force representing their counties.
Surrey aims for a prominent position in this field against friendly and healthy rivalries from the surrounding counties and those across England, Scotland and Wales, with some cheeky banter thrown in for good measure.
A fortnight after a successful team-building event at Wild Wood Adventure, the Surrey team met to much excitement and chatter at Guildford Spectrum on Saturday 6 October for the coach trip to Sheffield.
Forty teams embarking on Sheffield hotels meant the organisation of this well-oiled machine to settle and feed swimmers from across the country went without hitch. Surrey was able to spend some much needed rest and recuperation after dinner to prepare for the competition the following day.
An early start on Sunday was met in reception by Scotland East in full regalia and their blue and white flags. Braveheart-style face and body paint, kilts and bagpipes in full flow meant the competition had started at the hotel rather than the pool.
We were incredibly proud to take such a great team to this year’s competition
Not to be outdone in their neon-yellow leg warmers, blue and yellow tutus and matching jester hats, Surrey walked across to the pool. The team, led by captains Matthew Ferguson (Woking SC) and Tilly Hansen-Hamilton (Guildford City SC), stopped the traffic on the way there – literally. It was quite a spectacle.
The meet is split into two divisions competing simultaneously. Division One swims nearest the scoreboard and Division Two nearest the diving pool. Surrey competed in Division One to deafening noise levels, blasting air horns and screams right the way through.
Amy Davies (South Croydon SC) got us off to a good start in the girls’ 16/17 year 100m freestyle, with a short-course personal best (SC PB) of 57.13 seconds. Following on was Matthew Ferguson, who could not have got much closer to his SC PB, touching in at 52.88sec in the boys’ 16/17 year 100m freestyle.
Surrey secured maximum points with two top places: Mackenzie Russell (Guildford City SC) swam a SC PB of 56.02sec in the boys’ 12/13 year 100m freestyle, and Dominic Morgan (Leatherhead SC) clocked a SC PB of 1:02.44 in the boys’ 12/13 year 100m backstroke.
Bearing in mind the whole team are in hard training early in the season, they are already producing staggering times
Pulling off an impressive third place despite being in the younger bracket of her age group, Louise Bressler (Guildford City SC) swam a massive SC PB of 1:14.51 in the girls’ 12/13 year 100m breaststroke.
The boys’ 12/13 year 4x50m medley relay team of Dominic Morgan (backstroke), Dan Hicks (breaststroke), Filip Malov (butterfly) and Mackenzie Russell (freestyle) finished runners-up, securing a huge 19 team points.
Summing up after the trip, county coach David Vine said: “The Surrey team this year had fantastic team spirit and the two captains did a fantastic job of raising the spirit and level of the team.
“I am sure if Surrey can emulate this year’s team spirit next year, we will again be a team that is fighting for those top positions”.
Surrey came a very respectable 11th overall. The results are available here.
Julie Burvill