Abingdonian 2017

41 www.abingdon.org.uk Lent Term Badminton The 2016-17 season saw continued success for the Badminton Club, led this year by our captain, Christopher Yip. Abingdon finished the season with 15 wins to 1 loss – an excellent record – and for the second time won a silver medal at the regional finals of the National Badminton Competition. This year also saw the departure of our coach James Barclay, who has been with us for six years. As our first full-time professional coach, James transformed the provision we were able to give to our team, with proper coaching technique and gameplay, which has shown both in the quality of our top teams in recent years and in the depth of the squad we now have. His role also enabled us to offer badminton as a core sport, which has given more opportunities for the game to be played than ever before, with more than 200 boys currently on the books. His warmth, humour, and professionalism will be missed, and we wish him well in his new role as head of performance sport at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. Perhaps the highlight of the season was the excellent run made by our U16s at the National Schools Competition. The team of James Moreton-Smith, Perry Tsai, Jate Jaturanpinyo and Anthony Xie won the local and county rounds, becoming Oxfordshire champions in the process, and travelled to Guildford for the southern regional round. Some magnificent games in the group stages saw Abingdon come out top of their group, defeating Sevenoaks in the process, whose captain is the current U17 European champion. The final gold medal match was a tense and thrilling encounter, which Abingdon narrowly lost to Reading School. The fact that Reading went on to become the national champions later in the year is testament to the quality within the team, which bodes well for next year’s season. This year also sees the departure of a number of players who have shown great commitment to the club over a number of years – Harry Lei, Chun Lung Chen, Samuel Martin, JJ Smith and Christopher Yip. We wish them well in the years ahead and look forward to seeing them again at an OA badminton event in the future. James Hallinan