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Speedo League Round 3 - 8th December
Report by Head Coach Kevin Arundell

We went in to the final round of the Speedo league with an outside chance of staying up. It was always going to be a close gala and that is exactly how it turned out.

From the first race through to the last our swimmers performed fantastically, the number of personal and season bests produced was more than I can remember happening in a Speedo league gala. We had goggles falling off and even a cut hand but the excellent times kept coming. The points were very close throughout the night and at some stages we looked like staying up but at other stages it looked like we were going down. Our swimmers fought for every place which was fantastic to see. Even on the last race when it looked as though we had lost our battle to stay up the Men's squadron made sure that we went out with a win and they also produced their fastest time of the season by over a second.

As disappointing as being relegated is, the swimmers can hold their heads up high as they all performed brilliantly. It would be unfair to single out swimmers as a group; I think this is the best performance in my 4 years of being head coach.

I would also like to say thanks to Bob Blake, Colin McCabe, Fiona Hennessy, Jane de Rome and Kay Pemberton for their help and officiating. Also, the parent support again was second to none. So commiserations on going down but congratulations on a fantastic effort.

GBM Team covering all 3 galas: Tom Allen, Richard Blatchford, Henry Bowers, Luke Brewster, Laura Bruce, Rachel Cope, Grace de Rome, Katherine de Rome, Rebecca de Rome,  Ben Duxbury, Nick Duxbury, Tony Evans, Michael Gregory, Joshua Haynes, Leanne Hennessy, Emma Johnson, Hannah Jones, Michael Kenny, Rory Lilley, Joshua Ling, Danielle McCabe, Ellen Morrison, Anthony Noonan, Sophie Parkes, Laura Porritt, Josh Pemberton-Hill, Dylan Pratt McCullagh, Andreas Sampson Geroski, Sam Shrimpton, Toby Shrimpton, Natasha Sinha, Andrew Smith, Juliette Tunstall, Tertia Turner, Dan Wood and Alicia Woodward

Click here to view the final League placings

Joe Leeming Bronze Trophy - 1st December

This gala is specially classified to promote swimmers within a Club and as such has time penalties for swimmers going too fast in individual races. This encourages Clubs to bring on their promising swimmers instead of always swimming their best swimmers.

GBM got a group of 9-12 year olds to this gala, with some swimmers competing for the first time. Whilst some found it quite intimidating, most swimmers enjoyed themselves. GBM swam exceptionally well, winning a number of events with the highlight being the squadron relay which was won by a staggering 21 seconds. Many attained PB’s as well but unfortunately many were time penalised. As a Club we came at the bottom but as the swimmers said “GBM came last because we were too fast!!” so the evening ended on a high note.

Thanks once again to the supporters, team helpers and the swimmers: Matthew Bibby, Joshua Brewster, Luke Brewster, Jonathan Bruce, Laura Bruce, Sam Cameron, Grace de Rome, Richard de Rome, Amaia del Rio Foces, Ellen Dunbar, Nick Duxbury, Beatrix Dyer, Alex Green, Hannah Jones, Johanna Mandal, Anthony Noonan, Boru Pratt McCullagh, Oriel Pratt McCullagh, Emma Presley, Sophie Presley, Chanel Robinson, Dasha Shumilova, Dymtro Starukh, Ben Sulch and Jake Sulch.