For Welsh Wanderers, their debut in the men’s competition is something to relish. It’s recognition of the predominantly young team’s remarkable achievement of rising from third in Championship 1 at the end of 2022/23 to this season’s peak of finishing immediately behind Manchester and Poly in both Division 1 and the Super 5s.

The success is very much a triumph for Wanderers’ coaching group - former first team regular Nigel Davies (Photo: Trevor Hyde) along with two senior members still playing influential playing roles, Dan Laxton and goalkeeper Tim Marshall (Photo below: Trevor Hyde).

Says Tim: “We have a fantastic group of young players who have come through together since about 2014. This is backed by a committee and volunteers - especially, former player and coach Jon Griffiths - who run the club in the background, allowing the three of us to concentrate on the water polo side.”

Tim originally retired as a player in 2014 to start coaching, with Dan in support as captain. Nigel stopped playing after the 2014/15 season and, after taking a year off, joined the coaching team, his appointment as chief coach allowing Tim to return to playing in 2016. “We didn’t really sit down and make a long-term plan for getting back to Division 1, but it was always our aim,” Tim continued. “We always had a feeling that the group coming through were going to be good.

“Nigel has worked really hard. He runs a brilliant session every week. It’s well attended and includes a lot of game play at a really high intensity so we can take our high-energy style into British League games. All the players spend a lot of time training outside, which means we focus in our sessions on polo rather than having to get fit.

“Dan has obviously scored a lot of goals for us over the years, but he brings so much to the team in terms of overall gameplay and knowledge. He’s great at motivating us and doesn’t let anyone lower their standards in training.”