For three years London Academy have held off every threat to their hold on the Youth British Club League’s Premier Division.
This extraordinary run of wins started in 2023 when the core of the team came together around London Academy’s Sienna Jetha. Their first order of business was to dethrone the previous champions Wensum TTC.
In 2024 the team returned to the Derby Arena to face off against the emerging power of Grantham College. And both teams took it right down to the wire, remaining unbeaten for the entire competition.
The final match was a head-to-head between London Academy and Grantham with the Capital’s team only needing a draw to win the title. In the end the tie ended 3-3 and London Academy had retained their title by a single point.
This year the team headed to Derby on the 15th & 16th of February to try and clinch an extraordinary third title in a row. Once again they were chased to the line by Grantham who went into their head-to-head needing a win to level the table.
However, this time there would be no doubt as to who the winners were going to be, as London Academy took the tie 4-2 and clinched an amazing triple.
Remarkably, this wasn’t the only triple victory on the day, as the girls Second and Third teams also won to give London Academy complete control over the top three divisions in the Youth British Clubs League. Even more impressively this was all achieved despite the loss of two regular squad members.
In Division One, Soraya Rahmani-Walentynska and Gianna Pang stepped up to fill the missing gaps, and found themselves in the middle of a metaphorical street fight. Back in October, seven out of the first nine ties in this division had ended in a draw, which shows just how tough the competition was. However, due to a perfect record of 8 wins out of 8 for Alisha Dutta, London Academy went into the final weekend with a narrow lead.
That lead looked to be in serious threat when London Academy lost their first match to London rivals Greenhouse. But the girls were spurred on by this and won the next four matches in a row to finally pull away from the pack and take the trophy.
In many ways the third team had the hardest job of all. In October they had posted five wins and a draw to take firm control of the division. However, with the departure of two of their strongest players, it fell to Assil Sarri to carry on with the addition of Serene Rahmani-Walentynska, Ruby Gandi Bamidele, and Alexia Ciobanica.
This relatively inexperienced quartet had the difficult task of protecting their fragile lead in a highly competitive division. The weekend started well with two wins over Brighton and Graham Spicer. However, a loss to to second placed Woodford Wells in the final match on Saturday left them going into the final day with everything still to play for.
Ignoring the pressure, the girls held their nerve to beat Draycott 4-2 on Sunday morning, which clinched the title with a match to spare. This could have easily gone the other way if not for Ruby Gandi Bamidele’s two wins, both of them in the 5th set, which swung the tie and the whole division in their favour.