{"id":3508,"date":"2017-10-07T23:12:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T22:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/?p=3508"},"modified":"2022-08-19T14:17:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T13:17:39","slug":"wokings-irene-holden-wins-sports-coach-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/?p=3508","title":{"rendered":"Woking’s Irene Holden wins Sports Coach of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woking Swimming Club volunteer Irene Holden has won ‘Active Surrey Coach of the Year’ at the Sport Woking Awards.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For the last 10 years she has been selector, trainer and team manager of the Woking borough swimming team at the Surrey Youth Games.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"The first year she took on the role, the year sixes won the Year 6 trophy and the borough finished second overall. Woking went on to become overall gala winners for nine successive years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Husband Michael, a swimming referee, said he was pleased for his wife to be recognised in this way.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said: “I think she was gobsmacked and delighted. She clearly wasn\u2019t expecting this, not knowing she had even been nominated for this award.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Irene has worked very hard over the years and put many voluntary hours in for Woking Swimming Club, Woking borough swim team, the Surrey Champs and Masters, and Surrey Schools\u2019 Swimming Association (SSSA).”<\/span><\/p>\n

Surrey County ASA past president and SSSA competition organiser Carole Chaplin said the award was justly deserved.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I am thrilled for her,” said Carole. “It is really great to be recognised for doing what is essentially a voluntary role, especially as it has been a number of years that she has faithfully given of her time.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Woking SC treasurer Julie Burvill said Irene was “massive” on volunteering, never minding what she did.<\/span><\/p>\n

“She is truly fabulous,” said Julie. “She had two girls at the club, all grown up now, but she still volunteers for marshalling at club open meets and galas and runs our club shop.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the award, Irene said she was disappointed at the decision taken to drop swimming from the roster of future Surrey Youth Games.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said: “We have recently been told that swimming will no longer be part of the Surrey Youth Games\u00a0\u2013 so Woking are the unbeaten champions.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I am very sad that this decision has been made because for the last three years Woking have managed to use some very good non-club swimmers who have gone on to join a swimming club.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere at the ceremony, Anna Maine won the ‘Freedom Leisure Young Sports Personality’ award.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maine, 17, one of the county’s leading junior swimmers, has shot to success over the past couple of years, winning county, regional and national titles in record times as well as represented Great Britain at both the European and World Junior Championships.<\/span><\/p>\n

Organised by Woking Borough Council in partnership with Sport Woking, these annual awards recognise and reward talented local athletes, coaches, volunteers, teams and clubs for their outstanding achievements.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woking Swimming Club’s Irene Holden wins Active Surrey Coach of the Year at the annual Sport Woking Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15,14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured","8":"category-news","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3508"}],"version-history":[{"count":67,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9079,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions\/9079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surreyswimming.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}