News

To date we have raised just over £1,500 for Club funds. About £800 of this came from the sponsored 'Channel' Relay Swim from which we also donated a fabulous £800 to Sport Relief.

Sincere thanks to everyone who has supported us.

Click here if you'd like to make a donation or pledge towards our '£90 for 90' fundraising appeal.

Penguin men travelled to Lancaster for their first Super 5s weekend (12/13 November).

First match against Manchester saw us beaten convincingly, 14-6. Next up was Cheltenham who had stormed through the divisional phase undefeated, so this promised to be a tough game. However, inspired by seven-goal Attila Banhidy and Gergo Szabo, who scored five, we somehow managed to hang on for victory 16-14, despite conceding 18 majors and having to play a man down for four minutes in the final period following a brutality offence.

We're now on Twitter - follow the link on the homepage to follow us there!

Weights, wrestling, Penguin men and girls on film ...in her October blog Frankie reports on her grueling land training regime, celebrates Penguin men's win over Lancaster, and shares the GB Team's experiences in China via her video diary.

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Penguin Emperors closed the first phase of the season at Watford Woodside (22/23 October) in a solid third place that secures our position in the new Super 5s.

Opening an intense weekend (three games in less than 20 hours!) was a match against Liverpool B. In a game that will be judged more for its shocking referring decisions than the action in the water, we ended up coachless and missing two players for three majors!
Nonetheless we won convincingly 15-2, with almost every member of the team getting on the score sheet.

The Penguin attack showed a different side when we faced the League leader, Liverpool A, without a coach. They opened with a thundering 4-0 lead, immediately making things tough for us. While our zone defence improved, our static attack left the way clear for too many counter-attacks by the fast Liverpool girls. The final score of 11-3 doesn't properly do justice to a game that would have been more balanced had we taken advantage of own counter-attacks and extra men.
 
Our weekend closed with a trickier-than-anticipated match against Sheffield, not least because energy levels for a good part of the team were still depleted from the previous day. During the first two quarters we failed to capitalise on a number of opportunities to score from attack, and a missed penalty. Then a defensive distraction gave a temporary advantage to Sheffield. But we woke up in the second half and a strong improvement in extra men that progressively got smoother and smoother took us to an 8-2 victory.

A fair conclusion to a good first part of the season for the Emperors.

On Saturday our women's 3rds - Penguin Rockhoppers - travelled to Basingstoke to play the final games in Phase 1 of the BWPL (15/16 October).

The first match was against Liverpool Water Beatles who were top of the League. They were a speedy team of spritely young players but we fought back and played well as a team. Fee Greer battled monumentally hard to force some kick outs, and we were able to use the man-ups to score and take us to victory, 7-5.

The second match against South Derbyshire was tough! At half time the teams were level at 6-6, then South Derbyshire went up a gear and scored 5 goals in the last quarter giving a final score 8-12. Particular mention to Emma Stapleton for her fantastic goal scoring and her first hat trick for the Rockhoppers!

These results put us fifth in the table and secured our place in the new Championship 2 for the rest of the League season. Great result!

Great news from the BWPL this weekend:

Men's Div 1: Penguin just lost out in a tight game against Manchester (11-12) but a win vs Lancaster (12-10) was enough to book our place in the inaugural Super 5s.

Women's Div 3: Penguin Rockhoppers beat Liverpool (7-5) and despite losing to South Derbyshire (8-12), we held our place in the top 5 to qualify for the new Championship 2.

Well done to both teams!