2007 SPORTING FLASHBACK
JANUARY
Former Newark Hockey Club player Adam Dixon returned from Australia with a silver medal after representing Great Britain in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney.
The Great Britain team had victories over China (4-1) and Malaysia (2-1) and a 1-1 draw with Australia in the round-robin stage, earning them a place in the final where they again played the host nation, drawing 2-2 before losing 5-4 on penalties after extra-time had failed to separate the two.
FEBRUARY
The main angling match of the weekend, the Long Bennington Baits/Dynamite Baits Winter League match at Portland, was cancelled as the venue, Four Island Lakes, was frozen solid.
There was plenty on elsewhere, however, and the best weight of the weekend was at Windmill Farm at Spalford in the open match.
The winner was Tony Mills who took carp to 9-8-0 on corn and pole, fished over pellet for a weight of 61-14-0.
The runner-up was Steve Crane, who arrived there by mistake after intending to go to Grove Ponds. He weighed 30-11-0, again caught on corn.
MARCH
The young gymnastics star Abbie McGreade beat off the challenge of more than 100 competitors to win a county gymnastics title.
The 11-year-old from Balderton travelled with 26 girl gymnasts from the Castle Grove Gymnastics Club to compete in the county floor and vault championships at the West Lindsay Leisure Centre in Gainsborough where they were up against eight other clubs in the Lincolnshire event.
Abbie, who attends Chuter Ede Primary School in Balderton, clinched the gold medal in the 12-13 age-group, with her floor routine producing the highest score of the day.
APRIL
Karting star Jack Harvey racked up another race victory in European competition when he celebrated his 14th birthday by winning the first final at the latest round of the Winning Series of Karting championships at the Zuera circuit in Spain.
The Bassingham teenager was again the driver to beat in the K3 class, taking pole position for the opening heat in the timed qualifying sessions.
His two third places put him on the second row of the grid and he was in second place going into the last of the 12 laps when his rival left a gap and Jack forced his way through to take the chequered flag.
MAY
They may have been pipped for the Newark Football Alliance Senior Division title by The King’s Arms, but Farndon United retained the Willie Hall Trophy when they scored an extra-time winner against Coddington in the final at Lowfields.
A glut of night matches took their toll with some tired legs out on the field, and United were five minutes away from a penalty shoot-out when they won one of their own and Steven Venables stepped up to score the only goal of the game from the spot to sink a plucky Coddington side who more than played their part.
JUNE
The Broadway pool team, playing in their first season in the Wheatsheaf Pool League, clinched promotion from Division Five in spectacular fashion.
They travelled to nearest rivals Bridge Inn for their final game of the season, knowing that victory for either side would earn them a place in Division Four in the following campaign, and cruised to an emphatic 8-1 success.
The Broadway team were beaten just twice in their inaugural league campaign, on both occasions by the eventual champions Royal Oak.
The Wheatsheaf Whippersnappers took all the top prizes, winning the First Division championship, the Knockout Cup and both the singles and the doubles titles.
JULY
The River Trent is unfishable for four successive weekends because of the floods, and even some commercial fisheries were flooded out, with some closed and the rest with the pegs under water.
Bailiff Ian Richardson had been saving stranded fish, and the two best carp he weighed before returning them to the river tipped the scales round to 38-2-0 and 34-8-0.
A local schoolboy who shall remain unnamed forgot to go to school and had a 26lb carp on floating bread from the middle of a field near Farndon, while there were also good bream and roach on float tactics from the carpark at the Britannia at Farndon.
AUGUST
Andy Willey of Ramsdale Park Golf Club in Calverton splashed his way to a two-shot victory in the county championship.
It proved to be one of the strongest fields for many years, with the county’s top 16 professional and top 16 amateurs battling it out in the rain at Coxmoor.
Willey shot rounds of 70 and 68 to finish two clear of Chris Hall from Rushcliffe, with Willey’s team-mate, defending champion Paul Bagshaw, finishing third equal with a 70 and a 71.
SEPTEMBER
The Ransome and Marles Cricket Club Ladies’ team won the national Premier League Cup against Bath in the final at Taunton.
It was an even sweeter victory for the team after losing in the final on the same ground the previous year, and captain Jenny Gunn said: “It was a proud moment for us to to be crowned Premier League champions as we are now officially the best ladies’ club side in the country.”
OCTOBER
Alice Thomas was the star of the show once again, recording two individual wins and assisting in two relay successes as Newark Swimming Club finished in an excellent third place against strong opposition at the Notts and District Gala held at Worksop.
Thomas got first touch in the girls’ 15-and-under breaststroke in 36.65secs and open 50m breaststroke in 36.71, and then teamed up with Charlotte Batterham, Laura Crosby and Brittany Russell-Webster to win the girls’ 15-and-under 4x25m medley relay in 1min 7.25 secs, before joining Batterham, Crosby and Chloe Palmer to win the girls’ 4x25m freestyle relay in 1-00.20.
The club had 17 first places and the swimmers recorded 16 personal best times at the gala.
NOVEMBER
Jade Grierson (16) produced a superb performance to beat a girl four years her senior to win the EFK European under-21 full-contact ladies’ kickboxing title against the unbeaten French champion Julie Burton in front of a large crowd at The Dome at Kelham Hall in one of the best fights seen for a long time.
DECEMBER
The first of the Newark and District Double Board Darts League’s individual titles was decided when Simon Cobb and Kelly Stevens of the Castle and Falcon Arrows became the first mixed pairs to retain the title since John Wilson and Helen Cashin in 1990.
