UK School Games 2009 – Cardiff – 3-7 September
The Northern Ireland Team is now in preparation for the fourth UK School games. For those unfamiliar with this event, it is a multi-sport junior “Olympics” involving athletes in 10 sports. Athletes live in a sports “village” on a university campus and then compete in their own events at various venues in the vicinity. Each sport organises its event using different criteria for the selection of teams; some go purely for teams from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but Table Tennis divides England into 5 regions, together with the other three countries, making 8 teams in all. As well as team and individual events for boys and girls there are individual events for players with disabilities.
Training is well under way under the direction of Jing Yi Gao. The teams from the English regions tend to be very strong, so our past results have been in the last three places in each category. Nevertheless, we have two experienced players in Paul McCreery and Ashley Robinson who have been to all of the previous games, and we would hope that they stand a very good chance in the individual event this year.
For the first time we have one entry in the disability event. Stephen Halpin from Bangor Grammar School has been selected for the Standing Disability category and it will be a great experience for him.
Another new step for us is that three Irish Umpires Tom Mitchell, Joe Finnegan and Cecelia Armelin have been invited to join the umpiring team.
Details of the event can be found at www.ukschoolgames.co.uk.
Team
Boys Girls
Paul McCreery Roisin O’Reilly
Ashley Robinson Ashley Givan
Stephen Slater Annalise Walker
Neil Irwin Emma Ludlow
Stephen Halpin
NPC – Brian Orr NPC – Amanda Mogey
Team Manager – Tony Phillips