The tournament is the second of a series of age-group specific schools tournaments organised by Ealing Handball Club for the 2014/15 school year. The Schools championship is part of a three year effort to sustainably establish handball as a top 5 team sport in Ealing and West London secondary schools. The tournament follows a one-off event at Northolt High School last year.

Dormers Wells, Brentside, Northolt, Elthorne Park and Villiers took part in the U15 tournament hosted and managed by Villiers. The team played 15 minute games in a round robin format.

As with the U13 tournament the week before, the teams were well prepared tactically and proved very competitive on the court. There was some very good individual talent on show, which bodes well for the Ealing team trials for the 2015 London Youth Games, which will be held on 26 February and managed by Ealing Handball Club.

Again, the outcome was decided in the last match with Northolt confirming their status of Ealing U15 champions with a win over Villiers, which moved them ahead of Dormers Wells by a single point. It was great to see that most schools, but Elthorne Park in particular, fielded mixed gender teams.

The standard of play is really encouraging ahead of a second round of tournaments which will take place in the spring, with hopefully even more schools taking part.

A big thank you to Villiers Head of PE Nick Jones and his GCSE student helper Razaan, as well as to Ruilsip Eagles’ Super 8 player Gilbert Lewis who refereed all the games.

Results

Villiers-Dormers Wells 4-4
Elthorne Park-Brentside 4-2
Dormers Wells-Northolt 5-5
Brentside-Villiers 5-1
Northolt-Brentside 7-2
Villiers-Elthorne park 4-5
Elthorne park-Northolt 1-6
Brentside-Dormers Wells 3-5
Dormers Wells- Elthorne Park 6-2
Northolt-Villiers 6-4

Ranking
Northolt 11 pts (+12)
Dormers Wells 10 pts (+6)
Elthorne Park 8 pts (-6)
Villiers 7 pts (+1)
Brentside 4 pts (-13)