The Academy has joined the Cambridgeshire Schools League, entering two sides this season. Teams consist of 6 players, who play four games each afternoon, and all games are played at the Perse Upper School in Hills Road.
The opening round, early in the autumn term, was held before the Academy was properly running so we joined in at the second round. In total 18 Academy players took part over the three rounds we played. The A team was drawn from Ben Varea, Tommy Mole, Gabriel Varea, Ethan Wood, Ray Lee, Neel Mishra, Guy Parsons, Youssef Younes, Edward Griffin and Bluebelle Campbell. The B team was represented by Reuben Webster, Neel Mishra, Edward Griffin, Benjamin Tsang, Ziyu Ong, Tom Dunne, Ruben Emerson, Walt Dean, Akshayaa Balasubramanian, Nok Hoi Chan and Younes Kousksou.
As we had missed the opening round of matches we were paired against the weaker teams in the second round with the result that both teams won all their matches convincingly. Gabriel, Ethan and Neel scored 4/4, and Ben and Ziyu 3/3.
The second round in January was restricted to three rounds because of time. The A team started with two good wins before coming up against the eventual winners, King’s A. Our leading points scorers in this round were Guy and Bluebelle (2/2) and Gabriel and Ethan (2/3). The B team unfortunately had a bye in one round, but won both matches played with Ruben, Reuben and Akshayaa winning both their games.
We expected a tough time in the final four rounds, played at the beginning of March, as both teams were now in the top half of the table. The A team did really well to beat the second-placed St Faith’s, then lost narrowly to Cambourne Village College before finishing strongly with 5-1 victories over both JUVFC and the Perse School. The B team, regrettably, had a walkover in their first match before losing their last three matches against the schools that finished second, third and fifth.
The final results showed King’s School comfortable winners on 74.5 points. ALCA A were eighth on 49.5 points and ALCA B fifteenth on 37. I have little doubt that the A team would have been battling for the silver medals and the B team would have been in the top half of the League were it not for missing the first round of matches. The highest scorers for ALCA were Guy 8/9, Ethan 8/11, Neel 6.5/9, Gabriel 6/7, Ben 6/9, Ruben & Reuben 4/4 and Youssef 4/6.
Our thanks to all those who played, and well done. We hope you enjoyed it and will be back in the autumn. We will be inviting interest and selecting teams as soon as we start back in September. Provisonal dates for next year’s rounds are 6 October, 1 December, 26 January and 2 March.
Mauricio Varea and Paul Kemp