Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson Silver Medal Winners Olympic Games 2004 - a fantastic boost for our sport.

Welcome to the first newsletter of this season. For those of you who are new to the squads I will introduce myself, my name is Teresa Large and I am the Newsletter and Press Officer for Sussex Schools, my husband is Jason Large who is a full-time professional badminton coach and my children are Dean (17) and Kim (14) George, While I was putting the finishing touches to this newsletter Dean and Kim were busy packing for the Danish Cup tournament in Copenhagen, they have grown from being members of our local leisure centre junior badminton club to England International players, this season sees the commencement of the new Talent Identification System and I hope very much we will see more young Sussex players being selected for the WCS (World Class Start) programme through this new system. George Fraser has written an article in this newsletter explaining how the system will work and Jason, who is one of the BAofE (Badminton Association of England) talent assessor coaches, will write an article later this season on the structure.

Congratulations to Kirsten Read who won the Ladies Doubles with partner Heather Olver and reached the final of the mixed doubles with partner Josh Miles, Kim George with partner Bronwyn Powell and Lauren Holness with partner Felicity Porter reached the semi finals of the Ladies doubles. Luke Thomson reached the semi finals of the Mens singles. Sam Lock, Sarah Boyce, Becky Lafan, William Hilton-Jackson, Kevin Gill, and Chris Clarke also competed.

Kirsten Read has had a busy season already, she represented England at Langenfeld in Germany and at Malmo in Sweden in September, along with Kim George and Bronwyn Powell she will travel to Copenhagen for the Danish Cup. Luke Thomson also was selected for Lagenfeld. Robert Tring makes his England debut in Hillirod.

Heather Olver, a former Sussex Schools squad member has been selected for the Junior World Championships in Canada in October and in November with Dean George will represent England in the Commonwealth Youth Games in Australia.

The BAofE has set up another, lower strata in the world class programme to identify talent, for possible inclusion in world class training. There are to be four Regional Training and assessment weekends spread throughout the year from which suitable candidates will be put forward for National assessment. Each County has a talent identification rep and a number of profilers. In Sussex, I am the Talent Identification Rep/Profiler whilst Zeyar Win, Howard Wallis, and Clair Read will be supporting profilers. The Team is receiving training, in the profiling of suitable talent, and will endeavour to ensure, that no youngsters with the required attributes are overlooked.

Any youngsters identified by the Sussex team, will be submitted to the regional team, headed by Brian Hooper, and this will be the second hurdle. The youngsters from all eleven Southern Region Counties, will be further scrutinised, before being accepted or rejected for regional assessment. Any candidate accepted is guaranteed two assessments weekends before a further decision is made. There is no doubt that many questions, as to the working of this new and innovative scheme, will be posed, but as the scheme is in its infancy, no-one is exactly sure how things will work out. The main thing is that no youngster will be overlooked as may possibly have been the case with the previous system.

Sussex entered a team in the U12 Team Tournament at Hatfield on June 20^th. Eight Counties competed in two groups, culminating in a second round play-off. Sussex were represented by Harry Hacking, Dominic Wiyanta, Oliver Lambert, Ross Patterson, Bryony Morris, Felicity Boyce, Becky Walker and Marilyn Messenger (U11).

Our team were 'twitchy' in the first match against Surrey, but overcame their nerves to secure a 6 all draw and winning the match on points. More settled and growing in confidence, they met and overwhelmed Warwickshire 9-3, before coming up against the feared Hertfordshire. However, Sussex were not to be denied as they set about the opposition, in a determined manner and to the delight of us all won the match 9-3.

This put us in the second round final, against the mighty Hampshire. Harry went on for the first singles to face Steve Cappleman, who had bettered him on previous occasions. But Harry was on a roll and together with vociferous support from his team mates, played a series of controlled and accurate shots to win this game 11-2. Taking inspiration from this the team played 'their socks off' to force a draw on games but a win on points thus taking the gold medals. It was a great day for all concerned.

Charlie Buirski, Peter Dembrey, and Tom Fenner represented Sussex. Tom Fenner gained a bronze medal in Grade 4 Boys Singles, and together with his partner Peter Dembrey, also won bronze medals in the Alternative Boys Doubles. 

Philip Fenner and Jack Thomson were the only Sussex representatives. Jack Thomson and his partner Steven Cappleman (Hampshire) reached the Semis and won their bronze medals in the Grade 2 Boys Doubles. Philip Fenner and Jason Lai (Cambridgeshire) were runners-up and won silver medals in the Grade 3 Boys Doubles.

Kevin Gill, William Hilton-Jackson, Helen Merrett, and Felicity Porter represented Sussex. Kevin Gill won Gold in Boys Grade 3 Singles, and went on to win another Gold with his partner William Hilton-Jackson in the Alternate Boys Doubles.

The first JC Under-13 Select Tournament took place at High Wycombe with 24 boys and 15 girls Grade 2 players competed. Sussex was represented by Oliver Lambert (in Doubles only), Jack Thomson, Robert Tring, and Dominic Wiyanta. Robert Tring finished 6th overall and Dominic Wiyanta finished 15th in Boys Singles. Robert Tring (and Ralph Pedersen of Middlesex) also finished 4th and gained a Bronze medal in Boys Doubles, whilst Oliver Lambert & Dominic Wiyanta finished 8th overall in Boys Doubles.   

Kevin Gill, William Hilton-Jackson, Lauren Holness, Helen Merrett, and Darren Wilmott competed and represented Sussex. William Hilton-Jackson was runner-up and won a silver medal in Grade 4 Boys Singles. Lauren Holness reached the Quarter Finals of the Girls Singles, and Kevin Gill & William Hilton-Jackson reached the Quarter Finals of the Boys Doubles.  

Kirsten Read won the mixed doubles under 17 with partner Chris Adcock and also lost in the final of the girls doubles with partner Karen Hird. Luke Thomson reached the semi finals of the Under 15 singles and won the mixed doubles with partner Fontaine Chapman, Kim George and Bronwyn Powell reached the quarters of the singles and both reached the semi finals of the doubles, Kim partnering Caroline Felton and Bronwyn partnering Alyssia Lim. Bronwyn also reached the semis of the mixed doubles with partner James Reynolds.

On Sunday June 20^th,a coaches workshop was presented by Jason Large at the Portslade Sports Centre. Jason used videos, demonstration and discussions together with excellent demonstrations by Dean George, Kim George, Luke Thomson, and Sam Lock. The purpose of the workshop was to let Sussex coaches see, discuss and be practically involved with the current training methods and techniques employed by the BAofE in its World Class Start Programme. It was very pleasing to see, that amongst the candidates were all County Squad managers so that the squad youngsters will, next year, be certain to receive 'state of the art' coaching.

WE couldn't wait for the International in Sweden since we received our letters in the post. On the day of arrival we had a team match against Sweden, it was really exciting because the teams walked out to Queen's 'We will Rock You'. We were both chosen for singles in the team match and we both won in three close sets. Although we won our singles we narrowly missed out by winning the match by a tiny minuscule margin of 1 point.

The following day we weren't scheduled to play our doubles until 3pm because we were second seeds and had a bye to the second round. So instead of being bored we went food shopping with the coaches and spent the rest of the morning buying clothes in the sports shop at the venue. We finally began our first round at 4.30pm! After a dodgy start we found our feet and we won in tremendous style 15-7, and 15-2. In the quarter final we knew we had a tough match ahead of us facing a Danish pair, unfortunately we lost the first game 11-15 and it looked to be going that way in the second as we were down 9-14, but some how we managed to pull it together and we won it 17-14, however after a nail-biting final set we lost 11-15. Despite losing we knew deep down that we had tried our hardest and played our best.

The next event to be played was the mixed doubles, Kim partnered Ollie Crabb (Herts) and Bronwyn partnered Ben Stawski (Warks). Bronwyn and Ben had a bye to the second round and were seeded 3. Kim and Ollie cruised through their first game winning 15-2 and 15-4 but faced a gruelling challenge against another Danish pair, we were not strong enough to beat the Danes. Bronwyn and Ben reached the semi finals here they faced another Danish duo on Sunday.

The last event to be played was the singles, Kim won her first round 11-1 and 11-3 and her next opponent was the same Danish girl that she had lost to in the mixed and doubles and knew that she had a hard game ahead of her. Unfortunately the Danish girl proved yet again stronger than Kim. Bronwyn also won her first round 11-0 and 13-10. She then went on to the quarter finals as she was second seed but lost in three close sets against the No1 Swedish girl. Both girls that we lost to in the singles went onto the final.

When we got back to the hotel we were so tired that we fell asleep in one minute.

On the Sunday, the last day, Bronwyn and Ben were up against the No1 seeds (yet another Danish pair!) they gave them a very good game but lost with respectable scores of 5-15 and 7-15.

Overall the tournament had been a success and an experience which we will never forgot.

IN THE NEXT ISSUE………………..Jason's view on the first Talent Identification days, more results and Shires League news.

Please let me know if there is anything you would like to go into the newsletter, I can be contacted on 01273 388876 or email me at treelarge@hotmail.com. Don’t forget to look at our website ssba.co.uk for up to date information.