18th February 2003
A Great WGI Regional Weekend
It was just after 6am on Friday 14th February and 50 members, staff and supporters of the Southern Knights were on their way to Holland for the weekend.
After taking the Tunnel through to France we travelled through Belgium and into Holland arriving in Amsterdam mid afternoon giving us 3/4 hours to take in the sights (and boy were there some sights!!) before travelling onto our Hotel in Eindhoven.
On Saturday morning we set off for the Contest Venue in Den Bosch. Our Junior Guard would be competing against 7 other units in the Regional A Class with only four of these moving forward to the evening Finals while the Seniors would have 3 other units to compete against in the Independent Open Class with all of these being eligible for the Finals.
The Seniors prelims performance was a little subdued (probably due to tiredness!!) and even thought they were given 1.1 penalties, due to differences in the rules between WGUK & WGI, they still managed to gain 1st Place. The Juniors had obviously woken up when it was there turn as they smiled all the way through their performance. The prelims scores were being announced just after each units performance and after finding out our score we were sitting in 4th Place but had the torture of waiting for the last Guards score (Thurrock Academy) which, if they had beaten us, would have meant missing the cut into Finals. The score came in and we still in 4th - a huge cheer and cry of relief was heard from the SK crowd.
There was a three hour break to fill before the Finals contest started and so the poor staff at Den Bosch McDonalds got the shock of their lives when a coach arrived and 50 hungry Brits piled off for the biggest single order this century :-).
The Finals contest got under way and the Regional A Class was first to perform and so the evening event got under way with our Juniors really firing the crowd up. The stand continued to fill as the proceedings continued and by the time the Seniors performed the audience had increased to about three-quarters capacity. The Seniors Finals performance showed no resemblance to the one earlier on in the day and was without doubt their best of the season so far.
And so to the results. The Juniors remained in 4th Place and it was a great achievement to reach Finals in the first place. The Seniors held onto their first place and so were "crowned" Open Class WGI European Regional Champions 2003. What a day!!
Back at the Hotel that evening the celebrating continued and a few sore heads the Sunday morning boarded the coach ready for a trip to Bruge for the afternoon followed by the Tunnel home.
Congratulations to both Guards on their achievements over the weekend and also thanks to all the members, staff, parents and supporters for making this such a successful and enjoyable trip.
Two weeks and we start all over again by taking all three units to Pontins on Saturday 1st March before moving onto the Chippenham contest on the Sunday.