ICT Badminton – Nottingham University 10th to 13th April 2022

When ICT 2022 was finally confirmed, County Juniors were so excited about the prospect of representing Wiltshire as it did three years ago. With the full backing of Wiltshire County Badminton, we set about planning the event. Led by Head Coach Steve Hulbert, Emma Lewis and Geoff Mascall, we selected the team and encouraged parents to support the event. Many people who have played at ICT in the past would say that it was the highlight of their badminton journey as a Junior. The atmosphere, the noise, the excellent badminton and being away as a team all add to making it a very special event.

We wanted to ensure the team looked smart and so we set about selecting a team shirt as well as hoodies for all players and helpers to wear. We certainly looked a team. Janet Jenkins did an excellent job of organising all the administration, accommodation bookings, pack lunch food, travel logistics, the shirts, and a few horns to make a noise. After many weeks of preparation, we finally arrived at the day and with parent helpers we rendezvoused in Nottingham at our ‘student’ accommodation. Raymond Tan and John and Janet Jenkins were the chaperones and with some fun games and pizza we prepared ourselves for the matches the following day. Gary Pennington became our food back up and a big thank you goes to him for keeping us supplied with food for our lunches.

Our first match was against Warwickshire who had won the tournament in previous years.
Tough opposition but Wiltshire proved better, and we had a great first win! Overall, the games were tough and with three matches being draws and so going to points, we just missed out on doing even better than we did. Every point counted. We finished 10th out of 22 teams, a fantastic achievement and probably one of the best Wiltshire has ever had in this tournament.
The results:
Wilts v Warwick 6-4 (Great first win)
Wilts v Leinster 0-10 (Tough game against the side that ended up 3rd overall)
Wilts v Leicester 5-5 (We lost by 4 points)
Wilts v Cheshire 2-8 (2 good game wins against the side that game 2nd overall)
Wilts v Kent 5-5 (We lost by 13 points)
Wilts v Suffolk 6-4 (Decisive win)
Wilts v Northumberland 5-5 (We won by 3 points)

Great comradery, great coaches and helpers and great praise for all the Juniors who took part. They conducted themselves exceptionally well and gave their very best on court. A big thank you to everyone who was involved in any way with the event and planning. Hopefully we can build on this for next year.