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After some very tough opposition throughout the group stages the netball team finished fifth. Trained by Bernie Bacon and Nina Pasquale, the team performed in every aspect of the game and were delighted with their result.

After missing out on the final stages of the competition, the mini rugby team coached by Phil Davies and Manny Luk finished tenth overall after an exciting day’s action from all involved.

The swimmers made a splash in the pool coming home in 22nd place just behind the basketball team in 21st place. Mini athletics made a lot of noise in the main sports hall at Crystal Palace and ended up in 25th place. Despite some very hard fought matches, the football team just couldn’t score and ended most of their matches in a draws. They finished 28th on the leader board.

The Mini Games has provided an excellent opportunity for the young people of Hounslow to represent their borough and participate in sport. This year we had over 200 primary school children take part in the mini games.

Main Games Weekend

Crystal Palace played host to the Main Games weekend of the Balfour Beatty London Youth Games on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th July. In the glorious sunshine, Team Hounslow had a total of twelve teams representing the borough competing against over four thousand youngsters from the 33 London Boroughs. Saturday saw the Team Hounslow Squad of over 130 participants compete in angling, archery, cycling, boys football, netball, girls tag rugby and boys and girls swimming.

Peter Lee from Hounslow Sports Development Team commented that “The games were a great success for those teams that took part. We’ve had many sports this year that either haven’t taken part in previous years or haven’t had much uptake so we are really pleased to see those sports grow”.

Athletics produced two of Hounslow’s medals with Tulsi Hansla winning gold in the High Jump and Bharoz Ahmed winning silver in the Javelin. Athletics Team Manager, Claire Pearce commented afterwards saying that “the team performed exceptionally well. Considering some athletes were not from clubs and received minimal training, the fact that we got many top ten finishes was amazing.”

The boys and girls swimming teams did very well too. Alex Bandarian of Ealing Swimming Club bagged Hounslow’s third medal, a bronze in the 50m butterly in a time sub 30 seconds.

In the angling, three Hounslow anglers travelled to Tylers Common Fishery and landed over 16lbs of a variety of fish including two carp. The team eventually finished in eighth place behind west London rivals Hillingdon and Harrow.

Archery saw two competitors take part from Hounslow, Manvir Bhandal and Jake Goldsmith. Despite having a team half the size of all the others, Hounslow pulled out all the stops to finish in 16th place.

Hounslow’s cycling team was managed by Steve Roberts from Groundwork Thames Valley and he supplied the team with bikes that he and his colleagues had salvaged from one of their initiatives. Hounslow had eight riders all together, four in the junior and four in the juvenile age group. The team finish eleventh overall.

Boys football coached by Richard Osei from Brentford Football Club Community Sports Trust missed out on qualifying for the final stages by only a few points, but finished with a flurry of goals in the plate competition.

The netball team finished in the top half of the table and the coaching from Grasshoppers Netball Club paid off as the team pulled out great performances in all of their matches.

The Girls Tag Rugby team were very unlucky to not qualify after they were tied in the pool and the qualification was down to tries scored whereby the girls missed out to Ealing by one try. Team Manager James Mason from Grasshoppers Rugby Club said “the team performed beyond expectations and were improving throughout their matches. I’m sure that if we went through to the semi-finals we would have beaten any competition. I’m very proud of all our girls, they have worked extremely hard during recent training sessions and are a credit to themselves”.

Aquathon, similar to the triathlon (minus the cycling), was another well contested event for Hounslow. With a fairly inexperienced team, most youngsters were competing in the event for the first time. The team did very well finishing 26th overall.

Amy Crook from Brentford FC Community Sports Trust coached her team to very successful finish. Narrowly missing out on the main finals, Team Hounslow fought valiantly and won all of their matches in the plate competition, finishing off in style with a 1-0 win over close rivals Team Richmond.

Indoor Rowing was the last event in the Youth Games 2009. Hounslow had a full squad with one boy and one girl from each school year (7 – 12). Despite having to wait all day to compete, the team gave it their all and finished in a very respectable 15th place.

Chris Joyce, Masie Dique and Louise Cryan, Hounslow Competitors commented that “the Youth Games were great fun and it was really good to be meeting people from other boroughs and competing against people we normally never would”.

Peter Lee and everyone at the Sports Development Team thanked all those involved with this years games: “the participants, parents and families, the team managers, the volunteers and also to the event organisers London Youth Games Ltd. and Limelight Sports, without all of these people the event wouldn’t have been the success it was.”