Bristol Central Ladies Water Polo

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Bristol & West Match Reports

Women win gold

A team consisting of players from Hammersmith Penguin (7), Liverpool (1) and Bristol Central (4 - Louise Sherman, Michelle Jenkins, Deborah Startin and Melanie Power) took part in the 2004 FINA World Masters Swimming and Water Polo competition in San Marino.

The team defeated Hungary in a thrilling final to take the gold medal, the final scores were 7-6, 8-7 and 8-9.

Team manager Pamela Grof said: "We knew Hungary would be a tough competitor, as they are the reigning European (open age) champions. We are delighted to have won Britain's first Masters Women's water polo title."

Awards for 2003 / 2004 season

At the annual Bristol Central Dinner Dance on 12th March 2004 Bristol Central Ladies presented two awards for Player of the Year.

We have had a good year finishing 2nd in National League Division 3 and are gearing ourselves up for the play-off game at the end of April, which if we win will promote us to Div 2.

None of this could have been done without the effort and commitment put in by all of the players. We had a full 13 for 3 of our weekends, and for these we had to drop players as well.

There have been a few additions to last years team, but most of the players are the same, which provides a solid basis on which to build. To stick around and battle through after the disappointing and demoralising 2002/03 season, shows what guts and determination they all have.

There were a few nominations for player of the year this year and all of them with very valid reasons.

Vicky did a marvellous job in goal again this year, some of her saves were absolute corkers.

Laura was always in the right place at the right time, hopefully we might get another season out of you!!

Mel our super sub, put in at the start of a quarter to win the ball, worked well on many occasions.

These were among some of the names. However, in the end we were left with two players, which we thought both deserved a mention, so have decided to give a runner up gift in addition to the main trophy.

RUNNER UP - LIZA TALBOT

•  Liza has made a really valuable contribution to our team over the past 2 years.

• She played in every single game in this years National League and although she was disappointed in her own goal scoring tally, without her in the water many of the goals scored by the rest of the team would not have happened.
• She was one of our main players, and considering the amount of time she was in the water to finish the season with a total of only 2 majors was quite remarkable.
• She is not only part of Bristol Central but also Bristol University, and with her input as Captain the University team has also gone from strength to strength.
• Unfortunately for us, with this being her final year at University, she will be leaving in the summer so won't be around to play for us in the coming National League, although we still have a few more games for her to play before she goes!

PLAYER OF THE YEAR - DEBORAH STARTIN

• Deborah came out of retirement, after starting a family, to playing for us again in local league last year, and has been a regular at both Water Polo and swimming training sessions since.
• She got off to a rocky start with this years National League. She couldn't make the 1st weekend, then was majored out within minutes of being put in the water for the first match of the 2nd weekend, which she was really disappointed with.
• However, she got over this and proved herself to be another valuable member of our team, and even moved up to our starting seven line up.
• When in the water she always manages to find a space, which is reflected by the amount of goals she scored, 18 in total.
• Her enthusiasm towards the play-offs was100%, even when others had negative feelings about it she tried to convince them otherwise.
• This enthusiasm included her committing herself to next season, before checking that this was okay with her husband!

Debroarh and Liza with Prizes.

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