WEEKEND PREVIEW: British Club Championships
The 2022 British Club Championships take place this weekend (Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th June) at Harbourside Park, Poole. As with the 2021 competition all events apart from the Open Club Championship will be pairs. The Open Club Championship remains as a 4 a side event.
The action gets underway at 11am on Saturday with 2 semi-finals for the British Under 14’s Club Championship which will be run concurrently with the top 3 teams from each semi-final advancing to a 6 team final. Kesgrave, Norwich, Ipswich & Coventry had teams in the 1st 4 places in last years event. The 1st Semi-final lines up with Exeter, Coventry, Poole and Kesgrave B whilst Kesgrave A, Ipswich, Norwich & Southampton line up in the 2nd semi-final.
The Junior Club Championship follows at 12.30 and will be a straight final to be contested by Exeter, Poole, Kesgrave, Sheffield and Southampton. Kesgrave are the only team from last year’s competition, where they were runners-up to Ipswich, who are entered on this occasion.
The Under 12’s Club Championship follows at 2pm and will be a straight final with 7 teams competing. Kesgrave, whose 2 teams finished 1st and 2nd last year, have 2 teams entered on this occasion also. They will be joined by Hethersett (who finished 4th last year), Sheffield, Poole, Newport & Leicester.
The Under 16 Girls Club Championship will follow at 3.30pm and will be a straight final between Kesgrave, Newport, Poole and Exeter (who were the winners when this competition was last held in 2019)
The Under 14’s Club Championship Final will be contested at 5pm by the top 3 teams from each of the semi-finals before the day is rounded off by the Women’s Club Championship at 6.30pm which will be a straight final to be contested by Kesgrave, Exeter, Leicester (who have won this competition every year it has been staged since 2006), Sheffield, Poole and Horspath.
Moving on to Sunday and the Open, Veteran and Under 16 Boys Club Championships will all be decided. The action gets underway at 10am with the first of 2 semi-finals for the Open event which will be contested by Coventry, Exeter, Hethersett, the 4 time and defending champions Horspath and the 2019 winners Poole. The 2nd semi-final follows at 11.30am and features 3 teams who have won this event 5 times between them, namely 2009 & 2015 winners Birmingham, 2008 & 2018 winners Great Blakenham and 2017 winners Newport. Ipswich & Kesgrave complete the line-up. The top 2 teams from each semi-final will advance to the final.
The Over 40’s Club Championship will be at 1pm and will be run as a straight final. Leicester entered 3 teams in last year’s event and they took a clean sweep of the podium. They have 2 teams entered this year and they will be joined by teams from Poole, Hethersett, Sheffield, Exeter & Newport
The Under 16 Boys Club Championship follows at 2.30pm and will be a straight final featuring the top 3 teams from last year Kesgrave, Ipswich & Hethersett. Also competing are Poole, Horspath, Southampton & Exeter
The 2022 British Club Championships conclude with the Open Club Championship Final at 4pm which will be contested by the top 2 teams from the 2 semi-finals