Wey Valley Swimming Club were handed a very tough draw for the first round of the 2008 Rother league season. The Division 3 club were draw against last years Division 1 champions Staines, the hosts Woking who will be hoping for league glory this year, Hamble and Dorking from Division 2 and Elmbridge from their own Division 3. Regardless of the improvement that Wey Valleys swimmers have made in the last 18 months this was always going to be a hard night's swim.

The night started well with WV swimmers punching above their ranking, Ailie Groom, Tom Kearsey and Alice Walker-Earwicker all recorded respectable third places.

This may of inspired Alex Sweet who then recorded Wey Valley's first victory of the night in the Boys U11 25 metres Butterfly in a PB of 19.24 seconds and Luke Edwards who came a close second in the Boys 50 metres backstroke in a personal best of 37.68 seconds.

The middle section of races proved to be a lot tougher for the Wey Valley children but despite the fact that victories were hard to come by out of the 34 individual swims the children recorded 23 personal bests, a testament to the effort that was being put in to the swims.

Emily Whall raised Wey Valley spirits towards the later end of the gala with a fine victory in the girls U13 50m Butterfly.

Wey Valley have a reputation for strong relay teams and the evening ended with Luke Robinson, Elliot Taylor, Alex Sweet and Davis Taylor coming second in the U11 Boys Medley and for the girls Liz Bell, Ailie Groom, Emily Whall and Harriet Burke coming second in the girls U13 medley.

Wey Valley Rother League Team manager Jon Brayne commented after the gala, "The next two rounds will see Wey Valley competing against their peers in Division 3 which will give a truer picture of where the clubs lies in this competition. The children swam really hard tonight and it is tough when you have to swim up two divisions. I am happy with the way that they have worked together as a team and we will take this experience away with us and try to make our mark on this competition in round two. Despite having come here and swam against these larger clubs we have ended up bang on target within our own division."

Once all of the results from the evenings swims across the south coast were in Wey Valley can be pleased with their performance as they are now ranked fourth in Division 3, just behind Elmbridge and clear of the drop zone. Round two of the Rother league takes place on the 21st June.

Chris Michael