Swimmers leading club back into light

Two years later, under new guidance, the club has since signed up their 100th member and are now ready to progress on the competitive stage, writes Paul Joannou.

Newport held their own club championships in October and that alone was evidence that the club is in the strongest position it’s been in for years.

Angela Spencer is part of the committee, joining after the takeover, and she’s enjoyed watching the clubs recent rise from and is optimistic about the future.

“We’re showing signs of progress,” she said. “We’ve had eight records broken at our club championships and 12 personal bests. Our swimmers are looking more like swimmers that know what they’re doing because we now have level one and level two coaches.

“We also signed up our 100th member this year. When the committee took over in 2015 we only had 40 so the club has really grown.”

Part of that growth has been helped by retaining some of their eldest swimmers and attaining AFA Swim Mark Accreditation and are now part of two competitive leagues which have all been achieved since the committee took over and rebuilt the club with a lot after a lot of hard work fundraising.

“After our chairman stepped down two years ago our main chairman stepped down the club almost folded. Emma Bishton took over along with parents who highlighted a coach and formed a committee,” added Spencer.

“We raised money and got a Newport Town grant and a Nationwide grant so we bought new equipment such as lane ropes, flags and lane clocks.

“We also raised money through cake stores. With more people now at the club, they make around £90 instead of £25. “

The club’s main competition is the Nuneaton and District Junior League, but age restrictions saw the club’s older members miss out on competition.

However, since Newport found their feet again, they’ve been able to enter into another league to give the older members competitive races and Spencer is hoping that will coincide with an upturn in results.

“We’re retaining our older swimmers because we’re taking part in another league,” she said.

“We were previously only competing in the Nuneaton League, but we’ve now joined the Crusader League, which includes teams from Stoke and Telford and has no age limit, whereas the Nuneaton League was for ages 12 and below so our older swimmers didn’t really have anything to swim for so didn’t feel the need to stay.

"Results last year weren’t great, but we expect to do better this year as we’ve retained our more experienced 14-year-olds who can help and support the younger ones.

"One of the other most important things is we’ll have more swimmers now qualifying for the county championships in Wolverhampton, which Ellesmere usually win.”

“A lot of our swimmers now have times they need to qualify for those, which is great. It will be a benchmark to see where we’re at before the Nuneaton League and Crusaders League.”

With the added funding and opportunities for success in the pool, Newport Swimming Club is now one of the most exciting places to develop as a swimmer and Spencer is still encouraging more people to join.

“It’s a friendly and supportive club, but also competitive and inclusive,” said Spencer. “We’re ambitious and we want to perform better in the leagues after getting in.”

“We welcome any ages. We have eight adult swimmers who compete in the Masters League, one of them is a former coach of ours. They can compete in the Crusaders league too as that’s any age.”

The days of struggle and uncertainty are now long forgotten at Newport and their progress is showing little signs of halting and they are slowly putting themselves back on the map.