oday Panathlon were in South London following yesterday’s Football event for the first of two regional competitions. Hosted by John Fisher School and involving their BTEC students as officials, schools from Bromley, Croydon and Sutton made up the teams.

When going through the fixture list at the start of the season, the Croydon Vs Bromley clash is one people always look forward to, and today’s competition delivered on its promise. Everyone was impressed by the talent witnessed from all the teams, and accordingly this makes Croydon’s result, 10 points clear at the top of the leader board by the end of play, all the more impressive.

Croydon’s run of form included golds in the Boccia, Table Cricket, Polybat and both Athletic disciplines. In Boccia they won all their matches, including scores of 8-1, 7-0, 7-0 (all 3 end matches). In table cricket they recorded this season’s highest score of 324, and also managed a surprising victory against Sutton, managing to score the required 24 runs from the last over. In the athletic races they did the clean sweep, winning Golds in all the races

Bromley, having the gold in the football in the locker before the start of play today, didn’t manage to add to their Gold tally – though they provided tough opposition to the others teams and picked up four silvers. They were unlucky not to gain a 5th silver, coming third in the field athletics only on count back.

Bromley and Sutton fought hard in the New Age Kurling and the competition went to last end. In the last match Sutton scored a huge 6-0 to win on aggregate points; as the 2 teams had tied on 3 wins a piece. Sutton also had some notable performances in the field athletics, particularly in the long jump. Sutton need to be commended on pushing Bromley so close, ending only 4 points behind them. This compares to 16 points behind last year and is an amazing improvement. Congratulations to their sports coaches & PE staff!

The individual performances of the day included Jason Baty 2.06metre long jump (Sutton) and Temi Johnson’s maximum score in the Precision Bean Bag (Croydon). Both of these will go into the Panathlon Records for 2012.

“Despite a chilly sports hall on a snow ridden day, the staff and students of Sherwood Park participated well and were welcomed by the staff and students of John Fisher. We even managed a gold medal or two! Thank you for this opportunity.”  Sherwood Park, Sutton.