Great Britain Mens U17 Water Polo
Mark Ray
- 2.95 % funded
- £ 295.00 pledged
- 0 Days Left
These boys have been training hard for a large part of their lives with the ultimate goal of representing their country and becoming the first boys to qualify for the European Water Polo Championships in over 10 years.
The European qualifiers venue is yet to be confirmed but we all have our fingers crossed that we become the host nation. The draw is being made this weekend 21st January 2107. In the lead up to the qualifiers the boys have been training once a month together in Manchester, with athletes coming from all over the country and in one case Spain. The commitment of these players is superb with balancing school work and amount of training they complete each week they are a credit to themselves and the sport.
At the beginning of the Christmas break the boys attended a 6 day training camp in Manchester, during this camp they boys participated in some team building activities. The boys worked fantastically together on crate building, archery and low ropes. The activity staff said “they were the best group of boys they had had in a long time, and they could tell they were a team because of how well they worked with each other”. Three of the players spent 3 days in Loughborough at Youth Sport Trust National Talent Camp they attended. Here they completed a series of workshops with International and Olympic athletes who offered their experience on what it takes to be a successful athlete and a strong leader/captain in sport.
In the upcoming months we have the EU Nations in Brno (14th-16th April), where we will be competing against similar opposition. This will be only the second time for the boys to compete as England in a European competition since they have been attending regular training camps. Some of the players represented England as part of the English schools in Malta.
All camps are self-funded, competitions and kit all come from the pocket of the player and their families due to limited resources. We are hoping with support to make it to the Europeans in September and all athletes can attend without a large financial burden.