Ledbury and District Swimming Club had an illness depleted 'B' team at Droitwich in the first round of the PGL Junior League in what proved to be an exciting fixture with Cheltenham and Droitwich.

Building on the success of the unbeaten nine year old relay swimmers in the A team, five nine year olds, Lucy Dereham, Charlie Green, George Oliver, William Pinnell and Christopher Leitch had their debut team appearances. They showed their worth alongside Anabel Dereham, Emma Fitzpatrick, Patty Holloway, Olivia Hunt, Joe Bloxsome, and David Middle-ton, winning seven out of their eight relays.

Anabel Dereham and David Middleton recorded the fastest freestyle times giving them the honour of representing their age group in the cannon relay.

Amy Tyler had every reason to swim her best in the 13/u breaststroke race as although she has county qualifying times the strength of the club is such that she has not yet gained a regular team place. Winning the 50m event in a new personal best time she proved to the team selectors and other swimmers she is a very determined competitor.

In fact she proved to be too fast for this league as did Bradley Smith in the 10/u butterfly and Luke Rycroft in the 13/u freestyle as they all picked up 'speeding tickets' which unfortunately means no points. Luke made amends by securing maximum points with wins in the butterfly and backstroke events.

Rachael Lea showed her versatility changing from her usual breaststroke event she won the butterfly and backstroke in the 13/u age group both in new personal best times. Charlie Scott Wilson, also a breaststroker, switched to freestyle and butterfly and had fine wins with new times in both races.

In the freestyle 10 year olds, Victoria Watkins and Iain Campbell had a memorable gala winning their first individual team swim with new times, and nine year old James Middleton swam a very fast 16.41 seconds to win the 11/u age group. Two other young swimmers were successful in an older age group, Josie Rycroft (11/u butterfly) and George Bennion (11/u breaststroke).

Charlotte Wilce (13/u) who was feeling unwell but reluctant to pull out and let the team down, relied on her strong competitive spirit to dig in over the last 15 metres of her two length freestyle race and hold off the Cheltenham challenger for that extra point.

The recording table could be forgiven for being confused as not only did Ledbury have twins, Anabel and Lucy Dereham in the nine years team, in the next age group all four of the 'Docherty quads' were competing. Emily was victorious in the backstroke and Rosie in the breaststroke whilst Kate and Iain were involved in winning relays.

After 50 events the points were announced and Cheltenham were in the lead by one point.

With notable swims from Katie Batley, George Cusworth, Annabelle Wilce, Patrick Blake, Richard Jones and Harry Bethell the team gained two first places, three seconds and one third. With the complication of graded times it was impossible to know the tally leading into the final event, the cannon, the five boys, David and James Middleton, Ruari Smith Cooper, Arron Almond and Luke Rycroft with the girls, Anabel Dereham, Emily Docherty, Heather Farmer, Charlie Scott Wilson and Rachael Lea really swam their best but despite an early lead were unable to hold off the a Cheltenham team.

The final result was a joint first place with 175 points each to Ledbury and Cheltenham with Droitwich scoring 128.

Head coach Viv Jones said: "The team swam well recording 27 pb's from 32 events. With so many good squad swimmers team selection has become very tricky and every place is constantly being contested which shows great promise for the future of the club."