Calday Grange and Birkdale High take the badminton crown!

Calday Grange Grammar School and Birkdale School have been crowned Merseyside county badminton champions after a competitive event on Thursday 26 January.

The Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 Boys Badminton Merseyside County Finals were held at Broadway Badminton Centre and were a culmination of intra-borough competitions which took place during 2016/17.

After competing in their respective heats, qualifiers from the six Merseyside boroughs of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and the Wirral had progressed to contest the county finals.

Group winners in the Key Stage 3 competition were St Margaret’s (Liverpool), Calday Grange (Wirral), Fazakerley (Liverpool) and Birkdale (Sefton).

The semi-finals were a lot closer than the scorelines suggest, with Calday Grange beating St Margaret’s 5-0 and Birkdale overcoming Fazakerley by the same score. In the final, Calday Grange ran out 4-1 victors against Birkdale.

In the Key Stage 4 competition, Birkdale (Sefton) and Fazakerley (Liverpool) were again represented in the semi-finals and were joined by Cardinal Heenan (Liverpool) and Wirral Grammar School for Boys (Wirral).

Birkdale overcame Wirral Grammar School for Boys 5-0 with Cardinal Heenan triumphing 5-0 against Fazakerley in the all-Liverpool clash to progress to the final.

Birkdale’s Key Stage 4 team managed to go one better than their Key Stage 3 counterparts, triumphing 5-0 in the final although the scoreline did not reflect the standard of play which was extremely high throughout.

Danny Bacon, St Helens school games organiser, said: “It was fantastic to have representatives from the six boroughs coming together to compete in the county finals. The standard of competition was extremely high and the results of the matches didn’t fully represent the closeness of them.

“Congratulations to both Calday Grange and Birkdale on their victories and good luck in the next round of competition.”

Both Calday Grange and Birkdale will progress to compete in the North West regional finals to be held in Manchester on 1 March 2017.