The winners have been crowned in the Widnes and Runcorn Primary Table Tennis Competition.

This is the ninth year of the competitions, co-ordinated in partnership with Halton Table Tennis Club Community Coach (Frank James) and Halton School Games Organiser (Karen Drake).

Both the Widnes and Runcorn Year 5/6 mixed events were held at Halton Table Tennis Club and saw 120 competitors, with 55 trained sports leaders from Wade Deacon High School and The Heath School doing a great job officiating the matches.

In the Widnes competition on January 15, there were 16 teams from St Bede’s Jr, Spinney Avenue, St Basil’s, Farnworth, St Michael’s, Oakfield, St John Fisher, Ditton and All Saints Upton schools.

All schools played each other in a round-robin format of two groups which was followed by play-offs between the groups for the final positions.

The final results saw St Bede’s Jr A team being crowned Widnes winners, with Farnworth Athletic the runners-up.

There were four teams in the Runcorn competition on January 22, from the following primary schools: Gorsewood, Beechwood and Astmoor. All schools played each other in a round-robin format, which resulted in Astmoor being crowned winners and Beechwood runners-up.

The Mayor of Halton, Cllr Ellen Cargill, attended both competitions to support the children and present the certificates to all participants. Runners-up and winners were presented with medals and a trophy.

The winners of both competitions, St Bedes Juniors and Astmoor Primary will go on to represent Halton at the Merseyside School Games Primary Table Tennis finals being staged at Halton TTC on Wednesday March 16.

The competitions follow a programme of Table Tennis coaching delivered in the primary schools by Frank James (Halton Community Table Tennis Coach). Frank promoted the Halton Table Tennis Club junior coaching sessions which are open to all the pupils, which has already resulted in some new junior members attending club sessions.