News

This past weekend saw the 1st team women travelling west to Cardiff to take on Liverpool B where they won 9 – 5.

So far we're on target for to achieve our season's aim.

Ladies, enjoy the mince pies and the mulled wine wherever you are, and look forward to seeing you all in the pool at the next game against our London rivals – Otter - on the 9th Jan 2010.

On 4th December the Penguin Ladies 1st team jetted off to the capital of Croatia, Zagreb, for the European Club championships aka LEN Trophy. As the only non-professional team in the tournament it promised to be a challenging weekend.

We were met at the airport by the hosting club, HAVK Mladost ZAGREB, and travelled to our hotel with the Budva men’s team, who are one of the Europe’s top men’s sides. They had arrived from Montenegro to play our host’s men’s team on the Saturday evening, as part of the Adriatic League.

Our opening game later that evening against the hosts was an entertaining match for the home crowd. They established a 3-0 lead after the 1st quarter, and although we fought back strongly we couldn’t quite close the gap, losing 6-5 (3-0, 1-1, 1-1, 1-3).

Our second game was against one of the best clubs in Spain, CN Mediterrani BARCELONA. Their coaching panel said it all – head coach, assistant coach, team doctor and team physio! We lost 19-4 to a very well oiled and polished professional team.

The Saturday evening we were fortunate enough to watch the game between Mladost and Budva,. We knew it was going to be a good game and it lived up to its promise. What a display of skill, strength and speed!

Our third and final team of the weekend was Tas 2000, a Belgrade-based team. we fought until the final whistle and held the match to a draw at 4-4.

A good weekend of water polo was played and watched by all. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Orbana for supporting us with their healthy energy drink which helped us to sustain the energy we needed to successfully compete against these professional teams.

Tasja Botha
Penguin Women’s Water Polo Manager

Penguin produced a strong performance against Blue Marlins in their Winter League fixture at St Paul’s School on Weds 9 December.

By the end of the second quarter we had taken the lead 7-3.

Blue Marlins came out fighting in the third quarter, but their attempts to pull back the score were thwarted by some great goal keeping by Nilo Falcini.

With Piers Martin notching up six goals, Penguin took a comfortable 13-5 win at the final whistle.

Bracknell Masters Open Meet is on Saturday 6 March.

50m, 100m and 200m events in all strokes, 100m and 200m individual medley and team events. Closing date is 6 February. Full details available here.

Contact Stu Bell if you're interested.

Penguin men's water polo team had a good game on Wednesday last week, that included the return of Miguel Ortiz after a long absence.

We had a good start and never let the game slip away from us. Although we conceded too many goals in the deep end quarters, some strong contributions from Miguel and Piers Martin saw us home.

However, the stand out performance of the night was a three goal haul (including an inch perfect lob that everyone else swears was a pass) from Justin Shute, despite his claim of returning from his sick bed!

Final score Penguin 11, Ealing 6.

Penguin Men's first team won both their matches as the London League Premier Division got underway on Sunday 11 April 2010 at Whitgift.

Penguin took a narrow victory in the first game against Sutton and Cheam; final score 16-15. The second match against Beckenham was also high-scoring and saw a close result with Penguin winning by two goals, 15-13.

The Men's second team also started well with a 10-4 win against Otter in their home match at St Paul's on Wednesday 14 April.

Penguin Ladies first team won all three of their matches in the third round of the Spring Cup on Saturday 10 April 2010 in Walsall.

Our first match against Liverpool A was a close run affair with Penguin taking the victory 7-6. Next up was Manchester B and a more decisive win for Penguin, 14-3. The last match of the day was against Caledonia which we won 7-4.

This puts Penguin into the semi finals in Corby on 17 April 2010.

Penguin Masters swimmer Karen Brown took bronze in the 50-54yrs 50m backstroke at the British Gas ASA Masters Swimming Championships at Ponds Forge Sheffield on Friday 23 October 2009.

A long standing member of Penguin, Karen's success is all the more sweet as she's only just getting back into competition after a tough year out of the water.