News

Welcome to the Cambridgeshire Badminton Association (Cambs BA), a County association affiliated to Badminton England.

Cambridgeshire Badminton Association is dedicated to the development and promotion of badminton throughout the whole of Cambridgeshire.  The county consists of around 30 affiliated clubs as well as hosting Junior, Senior and Masters teams playing in the Inter-County Championships.

This web site is designed to enable Cambridgeshire Badminton Association to promote badminton through providing news and information on local, County and national badminton. Please visit this web site regularly to keep abreast of all the latest developments.

Badminton England Senior Silver Circuit returns to Cambridgeshire

Cambs' Min Dabasinskas is congratulated by Daniel Bates

The Cambridgeshire Badminton Association welcomed the return of the Badminton England Senior Silver Circuit at the weekend, holding the 49th Cambridgeshire Senior Silver Tournament all day on Saturday at the Cambridge Regional College.

The Silver Circuit is the second tier of national competition, and attracts top County players from around the Country.  This tournament was a welcome return for the County, which has not hosted the event since 2015.

Every discipline was hard fought, with excellent games throughout the day.  It was in the Mens singles where Cambridgeshire enjoyed the greatest success, with the County's Min Dabasinskas winning the final against England junior Ethan Rose with a nail-biting 23-21 second game.

In Womens singles Suffolk's Katie Scott took the honours.  In the Mens Doubles James Scott and Daniel Hooper (also of Suffolk) were victors in a three-end final against Daniel Leers and Daniel Brown (Herts and Northants).  Katie and James then teamed up to take the Mixed Doubles final.

Finally, after playing a round-robin format, Emma Hooper and Natalia Mitchell (Nottingshamshire and Oxfordshire respectively) won the Womens Doubles competition, after winning all of their games.

Cambs' other notable result was Neil Place and Daniel Bates, who narrowly missed out 18-21, 20-22 in the semi-final of the Mens Doubles.

Complete results of all the events are available on Tournament Software.

Many congratulations to everyone who played so well during the day, and to the worthy winners.  We hope to be able to run this, and several other circuit tournaments regularly.

Photographs of all the winners are available on the Gallery pages.

Cambs hosting National Schools Championships on 8th March - Helpers needed

schools.JPG

On Thursday 8th March the Cambs' Coaching Coordinator Philip Gray is helping to run the National Schools Championships here in Cambridge.

The winners of each tournament will go to Regional Finals on the 19th and 20th March.

There are two tournaments on 8th March in Cambridge: 

  • 10am-1pm for KS3&4 boys
  • 1.30-4pm for KS3&4 girls

The competition is at the Cambridge University Sports Centre (https://www.sport.cam.ac.uk/about-us/find-us).  If any players or supporters of badminton in Cambridge were available for part of the time to help out that would be extremely helpful. 

Basically people are needed to keep an eye on the games, in particular keeping score and helping with the rules. Also with making sure the right children go to the right courts etc.

Do drop Philip an email (coaching@cambridgeshirebadminton.org) if you can help even if it’s just an hour or two.

Cambridgeshire U20 and U16 Restricted Tournaments

Junior badminton in Cambridgeshire descended on Burwell again for two weekends in March, where the U20 and U16 Restricted Tournaments were held.

Open to all juniors resident in the County, the Restricted Tournaments are the annual events held by each County to allow juniors players to compete for the title of County Champion.

On 12 March, the U20 tournament saw the following results:

Boys Singles

Final: Leo Huang v Cameron Foo.  Winner: Leo Huang

Girls Singles

Group matches, with deciding game being between Sophia Abbott v Chanumi Gamage.  Winner: Chanumi Gamage

Boys Doubles

Group matches, with deciding game being between Cameron Foo & Harry Zhao v Leo Huang & Alex Yang.  Winner: Cameron Foo & Harry Zhao

Girls Doubles

Final: Chanumi Gamage & Sophia Abbott v Olivia Chan & Charity Pickup.  Winner: Chanumi Gamage & Sophia Abbott

The following weekend, the U16 tournament was decided as follows:

Boys Singles

Final: Achira Waduge v Sitan Zhan.  Winner: Achira Waduge

Girls Singles

Group matches, with deciding game being between Olivia Chan v Ruby Spencer.  Winner: Olivia Chan

Boys Doubles

Group matches, with deciding game being between Manula Dharmawardana & Achira Waduge v Sebastian Abbott & Zichen He.  Winner: Manula Dharmawardana & Achira Waduge

Girls Doubles

Final: Claudia Bazyk & Robyn Watson v Olivia Chan & Ruby Spencer.  Winner: Olivia Chan & Ruby Spencer

Full results are available on Tournament Software:

Photographs of the winners being presented their trophies are also available on the Gallery page.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in an event which was lots of fun, and saw some excellent games.  Many thanks to the volunteers who helped the events go smoothly, and especially to Tournament Secretary Neil Place.

Restricted start times

All the best to everyone playing the County Restricted this weekend! See you at Swavesey Village College at 9am tomorrow for the singles, 9am on Sunday for the mixed, or if you're only playing levels, 12 for on court at 12.30 on Sunday.

Results will be on Tournament Software (https://be.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draws.aspx?id=2D0A3BAF-DE74-454D-A61F-44C69304B627) and if Committee Members aren't too sweaty, updates will appear on the Cambs Badminton Facebook page!

Start of season newsletter

With the start of the season rapidly approaching, a newsletter from the new County Committee was sent to the secretary of each affiliated club, asking them to pass it on to all of their members playing badminton in the County.

The message contained important information about major changes to the County Committee, and information about junior, senior and masters badminton in the County.  If you didn't get the letter then feel free to nudge your secretary to pass such information along!  In the mean time, the message is below:

Dear Club Secretary,

Please see below some updates about Cambridgeshire Badminton Association for the upcoming season.  I would be grateful if you could circulate this to your members so that they can keep up-to-date about badminton in the County.

AGM

Apologies for the delay in you receiving this information, but ahead of the new season I wanted to let you know that following the Cambridgeshire AGM this year it was agreed to raise the county affiliation fees as follows:

Senior: £2.80
Junior: £0.75
Associated Seniors: £2.00

At the AGM, the majority of the long-standing committee members stood down, after dedicating a very significant period of service.  The leaving members had served on the committee for a breathtaking combined 111+ years of work supporting the sport, and club members!

The County Committee is therefore now as follows:

Chairman/Publicity Officer: Daniel Bates
Secretary: Louise Place
Treasurer: Graham Barr
Registration Secretary: Campbell Wilson
Match Secretary/ South Cambs League Rep: Simon Parker
Tournament Secretary: Neil Place
Coaching Coordinator: James Wilson
Masters Coordinator: Nick Pratt

General Committee Members: Sahan Gamage, Ruth LeFevre, Geoff McCall, Damian Saunders.

Please remember the Association is run by volunteers and we need your support to keep Badminton going in the County. If you can help out with anything or have constructive comments please let us know.

COUNTY RESTRICTED

For those that are interested the annual County Restricted Tournament will be held on the weekend of 1st and 2nd October at Swavesey Village College:

Singles: Saturday 1st October 9am-3pm
Level and Mixed Doubles: Sunday 2nd October 9am-6pm

Anyone wishing to be considered for a County team should certainly make the effort to enter, as this is the best chance to pit your abilities against the most players from around the County. Entries will open within the next couple of weeks (announced on the website and Facebook) and will be via Tournament Software as per last year. 

We are also looking for volunteers to help with running the tournament, even if it's just for an hour or two. Please speak to myself or Neil (neilplace101@gmail.com) if you can help.
Please pass these details on to any of your club members who may be interested.  

MASTERS TEAMS

The county is also running Over 45s and Over 50s teams this year and are hoping to have an Over 40s team next year. If you are in either of these age groups (or approaching soon) and would like to get involved please contact Nick Pratt (nick.pratt68@gmail.com).

JUNIORS

We are also very excited that the County is fielding two junior teams this season, for the first time in several years.  Cambridgeshire will have an U18 and U16 team, and the teams will participate in regular squad practice sessions.  If you have juniors who you think are strong enough to try out for a team, please send in their details so that they can be invited.

COACHING

The Association has a long-standing commitment to coaching and development within the County.  If you are interested in taking your coaching badges, the County offers bursaries to help with the cost for anyone who can demonstrate they will be coaching in the area.  Please contact me for more information.

To keep up-to-date with other badminton news in the County, please do check the website at www.cambridgeshirebadminton.org and ‘like’ the Facebook page (search for “Cambs Badminton”).

Wishing you all an enjoyable and successful season!

Any comments or queries, please let me know.

Kind Regards,

Louise Place
Hon. Secretary
Cambridgeshire County Badminton