News

For the third year running the Dane Court Girls, now playing as Under 16's, have reached the Regional Finals of the Butterfly National School Team Championships after clinching the Runners Up place in the Zonal tournament held at the Morpeth School,Tower Hamlets on Sunday 15 January 2017. This was definitely the toughest of the Zonal events both in terms of the number of schools taking part (6) and the standard of the opponents Dane Court had to play later in the competition.

The 6 schools were split into two groups of three and Dane Court breezed through both their matches starting with an 8-0 victory over the Essex Champions, Chelmsford High School, and then repeating the same result against Parmiter's School from Garston. Hertfordshire. Then the pressure really mounted for the girls in the Semi Final against a strong Christ the King College team from Newport, Isle of Wight who were the Hampshire County Champions.They had a really strong number one player who beat both her two Dane Court opponents and after the first six games the score in matches was 3-3 but then two fantastic wins from the Dane Court number 3, Annabel Cole, and the number 4, Angel Foster, saw the Kent Champions squeeze home 5-3 in a contest that saw all eight girls produce some very high quality play.

Amazingly the final saw the two best teams in the competition reach even higher standards and an even closer result. Again the Willingdon Community College from Eastbourne, the East Sussex Champions, had a top number one girl who won both her games but Dane Court never gave up and forced a battling 4-4 scoreline. However Willingdon had won two sets more over the whole contest so they were declared overall winners with Dane Court taking the Runners Up spot.
Once again all four Dane Court girls, Catherine Banks, Tayla Bayley, Annabel Cole and Angel Foster, deserve tremendous credit for the level of their play and their determination to never give up and fight for every point. Annabel in particular deserves a big pat on the back for remaining unbeaten throughout the whole event winning each one of her eight games.

So now it is on to Bristol for the Regional tournament in March where the opposition will be tougher still but the Dane Court team continue to improve and should be confident of giving anyone in the Girls Under 16 category a run for their money.