English Closed Under 11 Championship

On the weekend of October 13th / 14th no less than 50 youngsters descended on Nottingham Boys Junior High School to compete in the above event, the first of several events towards gaining the necessary scores to qualify for a place in next year’s England Under 11 Team trial. Of these hopefuls twenty-one were from Nottingham; two from Birmingham; one from Manchester; one from Lincolnshire; one from Staffs; and one from Derbyshire. That Nottingham youngsters were in the majority is, of course, no surprise, but it was nevertheless a record entry form this county. Many of them were only 8 or 9 years of age and could not qualify for the England trial anyway, but they were there to gain valuable experience. One of these very young contestants was Adam Bennett, only just turned 9 and still a Year 4 at school; Adam scored a very healthy 4/5, losing only to Koby Kalavannan of Surrey and graded of 149!

Other Midland Counties qualifiers were:

Joseph Boswell (Staffs) 3.5; Andrew Fergusson (Birmingham) 3; Akilesh Huria (Nottingham) 3; Helena Constantinou (Nottingham) 3; Sam Smith McGloin (Nottingham (3); Jonah Willow (Nottingham) 4.

This was a good effort by our Midland Counties juniors and we made up over 50% of the entries with nine of these scoring the coveted half norm towards qualification for a place in next year’s trial.