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Post by Sue Seagroatt

We hold a mixed ability fun tournament at Uxbridge at the end of every half and full term. The older, more experienced players are captains and they aim to pick evenly matched teams. To maximise game play, coach Aloka planned the October 21st tournament in advance, and produced a slick schedule of games on two pitches, which ran to the minute.

The team captains refereed and enjoyed balancing being fair to their rivals, whilst encouraging the underdogs.

The teams and captains were : Pale Green, Mickey; Red, Adam; Navy, Ilyas; White, David; Dark Green, Tom and Purple, Michael.

Kulzum and Sue B, took responsibility for scoring, and the results required some complex processing as the scoreboard below shows! 

For me the highlights were:
• Seeing the older players encouraging the younger inexperienced players.
• Adam deferring to Aloka to ref. Purple vs Navy “because Michael vs Ilyas is too like England Germany”.
• Two amazing goals from Sean McHugh and his frequent consulting of the scoreboard.
• Many impressive saves from Mickey.
• Two sets of penalties featuring Light Green, vs Navy and Purple.
• A rare visit from Ilyas, who got time off from his Saturday job to come along. Thank you Ilyas, really great to see you.

Result: Mickey’s Light Green team won. Congratulations to Mickey, Jaskaran, Giuliana, Lewis, Nikola and Lorenzo.

Book your place at the End of Term Fun Tournament on 9th December. Can we possibly top this one?

Posted by Sue Seagroatt

Shaun’s getting married!

Our Juniors water polo training session on Saturday 14th October was the last one before our amazing coach Shaun gets married.

Since starting with Penguin in January, Shaun has been responsible for increasing the number of players training at Uxbridge. He is a tremendous coach with great passion for the game, and he cares deeply about developing each individual child. He never misses a training session, not even in the run up to his wedding.

The photo shows Mickey presenting to Shaun the collection made by the parents of our juniors. This was very kindly organised by Sam, whose efforts in getting children to sign the wedding card were laudable; notably one who signed whilst in the pool!

Shaun has asked me to thank everyone for their generosity, saying he has been ‘completely blown away’, and ‘he still can’t get over it’.

Our best wishes to Shaun and Nicole for their wedding on 24th October.

New coach

Sadly Rosario, who was coaching the older/advanced group, had to leave us in the summer.

In his place we are delighted to welcome Aloka Prelis who has had considerable success coaching water polo in Sri Lanka and is excited to become a Penguin. This photo shows him looking pensive at the thought of the challenge ahead!

Posted by Sue Seagroatt

Summer London League

Well done to the Penguin Under 13s who came 3rd overall in the Summer London League: a fantastic result.

The final tournament was at Habs on Sunday 17th September.

Results were :
Penguin 5 Beckenham 6
Penguin 4 Croydon 3
Penguin 2 Watford 5

The team were particularly chuffed to beat Croydon, who came 2nd overall. This was despite the team being understrength as Georgia, Sean, Dan and Melissa were all unable to attend.

The team: Abelardo Cardenas, Nikola Christov, Luke Wang, Dan Usher, Audrey Tala, Antonio Bardella, Melissa Pala, Lewis Emerton and Jensen Jolly.

London Swimming Development Tournament
An Under 15 development tournament was held on 24th September organised by Chris Martin at Croydon Whitgift on behalf of London Swimming. This was for teams not yet competing in the London League.

We entered a team and were delighted to win every match and be awarded gold medals.

We are very grateful to the organisers for a rare opportunity to compete at this level. It has helped us enormously in our preparation to enter a new Under 14 team in the Winter London League.

Results were :
Penguin 7 Haringey 2
Penguin 5 Croydon B 3
Penguin 10 Barnet 2

The team were : Sarah Watts, Amaan-Raj Bhara, Kuis Aranda, Charlie Richardson, Will Hames, Dan Murphy, Joseph Rodgers, Ben Mason, Matthew Emerton, Georgia Mouratidi, Abelardo Cardenas, Audrey Tala & Antonio Bardella.

A big thank you to Mike Emerton for Managing the teams and Claudio for coaching.

Posted by Sue Seagroatt

Coach Claudio Palumbo presented two long overdue Jack Petchey Awards on the poolside this month. The awards should have happened at our summer party in July, but both winners were abroad.

The winner of the Jack Petchey Award for March 2017 is Samir Garnie.

Samir joined the club just over 2 years ago. He has represented us twice in the London Youth Games, is rarely absent from training and is a fast swimmer. He constantly applies himself to improving and is a dependable team member and role model for the younger members.

The winner of the Jack Petchey Award for June 2017 is Adam Maidment.

Adam has been with the club for many years. In April, when we were unexpectedly without both of our coaches, Adam stepped up to coach the advanced group. Since then, he has helped coach every week. He has an excellent attitude towards the younger children and commands their respect.

Adam is keen to learn and would like to do a water polo coaching course. His initiative and willingness are admirable.

Now that Adam is 18 and outgrown training with the club, he is staying on as a volunteer coach to gain skills, that will serve him well in his aspiration to be a teacher in the future.

We are grateful to the Jack Petchey Foundation for their support.

Posted by Sue Seagroatt

The Under 14 Trophy, for best all round achievement this year, has been awarded to Georgia Mouratidi. The award was made poolside at the start of term, as Georgia was away in Greece at the time of our summer party.

Georgia is a skilful and modest player with a surprisingly mature attitude. The captains always fight to pick her for their team at our Uxbridge fun tournaments. She has played in the London League at under 12 and under 13. Not only does she score goals in attack, but she keeps them out in defence. Recently, when the team lacked a goal keeper, she made that position her own too.

Well done Georgia.