It's been an exciting time for our students with 22 qualifying for a place at the Association of Colleges National Championships. Students qualify for the championships through regional tournaments that take place in the autumn term. As well as competing in their chosen sport, teams and individuals accumulate points for their region. The region with the most points is crowned National Champions and takes home the prestigious Wilkinson Sword trophy.  

Farnborough’s campaign to make it their seventh consecutive National Final began with the golf tournament, with the top four men and women qualifying.  Bradley Tuckett, Samuel Lucas and Georgina Carter represented the College with Bradley finishing fourth, Sam in ninth and Georgina in third.

Next up were the hockey teams. Our men’s and women’s teams both finished as runners up to Peter Symonds College. These matches were followed by opportunities in tennis, indoor cricket, netball and basketball. Despite strong performances, we did not come away victorious.

Our rugby team followed in the regional rugby union sevens tournament.  Straight wins saw them finish top of their group and play Havant in the semi-final.  It was a close game but triumph for our team then meant Peter Symonds College stood between us and a place at the Championships - our calm and collected team won 22-7. It was a great performance by all players with top try scorers being Ross Fraser, Seb Francis and Michael Sheridan.

The football teams were next and played brilliantly in the pool stages which saw both the men and women’s team qualify for the semi-finals.  Unfortunately, on the day our women’s team finished third and our men’s team lost to Brockenhurst College on penalties meaning they did not qualify.

On the same day the cross country runners battled for their place at the final. The top eight runners across the line would represent the region.  In what looks to be an unbelievably strong team for the final, six of our runners qualified - Elizabeth Squibbs (third) Katie Standen (sixth) and Amy Loftesnes Ratcliffe (seventh) in the women’s and Jacob Cvetkovic (second) Jack Boswell (third) and Robbie Coupland (sixth).

The final event was the badminton tournament.  Andrew Grant and Sam Allen-Gao played in the men’s doubles and won all their games seeing them through to the finals.

National finals take place over three days in April 2017 at Nottingham University.  Each of the 11 regions taking part will compete in 13 different sports. Good luck to all the students involved!