Surrey Association wins Essex Trophy 2023 🏆
By Paul Flavell
The striking competition for teams from the Home Counties was judged by John and Stephanie Warboys from the St Martins Guild, Birmingham and held at St Mary’s Walthamstow on the hottest day of the year! (Saturday 9 September 2023). After a welcome from the Rev Vanessa, Rector at Walthamstow and Andrew Kelso, Master of the Essex Association, Stephanie and John made remarks on the ringing in general and then commented on each team in the order that they rang.
We were lucky to be drawn first at 10.00am before the belfry became too hot! We had practised the test piece of Grandsire Caters on similar weight bells quite a few times and this paid off as we quickly got to grips with Walthamstow bells and rang the whole 14 minute test piece without any mistakes. Essential said the judges to keep a clean sheet as they had penalised other teams for method mistakes and trips. They said we set a really good standard for the competition. The little bells were particularly praised for controlled ringing which was maintained through the test piece. There was stiff competition from very good teams so we were absolutely delighted to win the Essex Trophy for the first time since 2006.
All our ringers travelled to Walthamstow by public transport so James White from Fleet has kindly agreed to bring the large Essex Trophy to Kingston tomorrow. We will share it out between our Surrey towers over the 12 months.
My thanks to all the ringers who took part in the squad and in the competition, well done all.
Results
1st Surrey Association 82%
2nd Winchester and Portsmouth 80%
3rd Kent County Association 74%
4th Essex Association 72%
5th Guildford D Guild 70%
6th Middlesex 65%
Surrey Association Team
1 Caroline Prescott
2 Shirley McGill
3 Anne Rueff
4 Sheila Cheesman
5 Chris Ridley
6 Fraser Storie
7 Paul Flavell (cond)
8 Jeremy Cheesman
9 Noel Gibbin
10 Phillip Ridley
