Blog

Things got pretty busy for us at the end of last year so post is a little overdue, but they say that good news is worth waiting for, so we are delighted to announce that the winner of the Jack Petchey Award for November 2019 was Molly Payne.

Molly is with our Hillingdon water polo juniors and works hard in every training session and gives 100% in her swimming. She always pushes herself to the limit and helps others in their training.

It’s great to see Molly enjoying our sport so much, with her play improving as her confidence grows, and showing herself to be a tough and popular player.

The grant we receive from the Jack Petchey Foundation was used towards a new trophy and pool time for our Friendly Tournament that took place on 1st December.

The trophy is for the best development team – it was awarded for the first time at the Friendly Tournament, next at our Christmas Fun Tournament and will be awarded in future at all Fun Tournaments and friendlies at Uxbridge, to show the importance the Club places on developing players.

The Friendly Tournament was a big success (read about it here), not least with the Hillingdon Under-19s. On the day Molly said, ‘This is brilliant, I’m so excited to compete. I’m loving this!’

We are grateful to the Jack Petchey Foundation for their support in making the Friendly Tournament possible.

Our Fun Tournament and Christmas party in Uxbridge on Saturday 7 December wound up a particularly successful year for Hillingdon Penguin water polo. Sue Seagroatt, who manages this section, explains more…

This branch of the Club is flourishing thanks to the dynamic coaching team of Shaun, Adam, Mickey and Will, with occasional backup from Michael. Each coach works with a dedicated group of players in their own pool space, but they also collaborate to support each other and ensure the development of every child. We are especially excited to have welcomed Will this term, who has settled right in.

Fun Tournament
We were honoured that Martin Waller made space in his ridiculously busy schedule to referee and hand out the awards. Congratulations to the Red Team who won the tournament.

Party
Somehow Sam managed to put on the party, despite having flu that day. She claims each party is easier than the last, which is a reflection of her organisation skills. We are truly grateful for all her efforts, assisted by Emma, Keith, Miri and Heidi. The parents had brought an amazing spread ranging from sushi, vegetarian pasta/biryani and pizza to cakes, millionaires shortcake, pastries, cheese and fruit.

Awards September to December 2019
As always, it was difficult to make individual awards as the teams have all performed so well and we’ve seen many players improve and exceed expectations this term.

Development Group – nominated and presented by their coach Mickey Tritto

• Coach’s Player: Thomas Baldwin
• Most Improved: Kefren Scarmel
• Most Valuable Player: Vicky Mouratidi

Intermediate Group – nominated and presented by their coach Shaun Hill

• Best Newcomer: Scarlett Sills (pictured further down the page)
• Most Improved: Thalia Ross and Lize Crone

Shaun gave a special mention to Hadi, who has been selected to represent London at Under 14, meaning he was away competing in the Inter Regional Championships, so unable to attend today; and Bailey for his club swimming.

Martin awarded bronze medals to Bailey and Sam who played in the Middlesex U14 team in the Inter Counties in September. Their teammates Hadi and Alex R could not attend.

Advanced Groups: U16s & Above – nominated and presented by their coach Adam Maidment

• Coach’s Player: Luke Wang – gives 100% in every session and is always well disciplined
• Most Improved: Jay Melvin – she has really improved since joining in the spring and has shown great spirit in the U16s team

Adam is very proud of this group as a whole and how their fitness has improved. He specifically mentioned the Under 19s performance in the December Friendly, and Amber who is competing with the Penguin senior women’s water polo team.

Thank you to all our parents
The speeches ended with resounding thank yous to the parents. Sam’s organisation of the party today is just one of her contributions this term, and Ruth and Emma have helped with ordering kit. We are also indebted to Amazing Anton, Youguang for the photographs and everyone who has been co-opted into running the table at competitions.

See you all in 2020, when training restarts on Saturday 4 January and the Hillingdon Penguin U12s compete for the first time on Sunday 5 January in the London Water Polo League.

While the BBC was gearing up to announce the Sports Personality of the Year, I was invited to join our Latymer Penguin water polo squad and their families to celebrate their recent successes and present Club trophies to some of our own Penguin sports personalities of the year. And there was cake!

Laytmer Penguin’s head coach, Claudio, was our host for the afternoon. He ran through an impressive list of achievements from the second half of the year – see below – with players collecting medals from various tournaments and the U16 mixed inter-regional trophy presented by Club President, Louis Lemieux.

Then it was my turn to announce the Club’s two annual awards with winners all coming from the Latymer Penguin section this year.

Ron Turner Memorial Trophy

A beaming Toby Roberts received the Ron Turner Memorial Trophy. Toby was nominated in recognition of his dedication, effort and commitment to water polo and the Club, and his family tell me that he lives and breathes the sport. These qualities sit alongside Toby’s GB and national caps over the past two years and he is a great role model for our younger players both at Laytmer Penguin and at Hillingdon Penguin where Toby started his water polo journey with us. Although not present, Elliot McHugh was highly commended.

Rob Derbyshire Memorial Trophy

The Rob Derbyshire Memorial Trophy was presented to the Under 17 Boys team which won the Swim England National Age Group Championships (NAGS) in April – Emile, Andre, Omar, Malek, Iker, Giorgio, Charles, Cai, Omari, Charlie, Theo, Ejike, Josh, Luca, Leonardo, Antonio and Abelardo.

Winning the NAGS title was a fantastic achievement which took many of the more established juniors’ teams from other clubs by surprise. The team’s performance brought great credit to the Club and their victory has put us back on the map at a national level.

In case you missed it at the time, here’s the team with Coach Claudio, fully-clothed, leaping into the pool to celebrate becoming U17 Boys National Champions.

Parents and coaches

Looking back on my swimming childhood, I can now appreciate how much time and goodwill my parents devoted to getting me to and from training and competitions, and how much the coaches invested in developing us. 

It’s the same story for all our young Penguins today.  The unstinting support of our parents and coaches underpins all the successes and the development of the water polo players of tomorrow. Your names may not appear on the trophies, but the honours belong to you too.

Oh, and you know how to lay on a mean selection of party food! Cake, traditional Christmas treats from around the world, freshly popped popcorn and fruit… please can I come to all your end of term parties from now on?

Back into the water

I don’t know how they did it but, once the food was eaten,  the players got into the pool for a fun tournament. Clearly, nothing gets in the way when there’s a chance to play water polo.

Thank you for having me there.

Sarah Wren

Secretary , West London Penguin Swimming and Water Polo Club

Latymer Penguin achievements in the second half of 2019