London 2012
With 2012 being the year of the London Olympic games and with Lancaster City Swimming and Water Polo Club having a potential five water polo players and also five club members heading to the Olympics, here’s their stories:
Ciaran James
Ciaran James is one of the younger members of the Great Britain Senior Water Polo Team. After showing great potential back in the junior Great Britain Squad were Ciaran was the captain, he was asked to move to Manchester to train as a full time senior player.
In 2010 Ciaran went, with three other GB senior players, to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to train and play in their National Water Polo Competition. Ciaran spent seven months over there and apart from a break at Christmas and commitment to GB tournaments in Europe, he did not see much of England, friends or family.
In 2011 Ciaran got offered a contract in SV Cannstatt, Germany where he will spend a bit more time there before heading back to Manchester in February. In December Ciaran was scored a goal against World Champions Italy.
Glen Robinson
Glen Robinson had moved from representing GB Juniors Water Polo to being a member of the Full GB Squad. He represented Team GB at the European Championships in 2010.
Early in 2010 Glen went down under to Australia to gain some more experience in water polo. Glen returned in may to play in the European A Championships in Croatia. He went out to Rapid Bucharest in Romania to train and play in their National Water Polo League.
In 2011 Glen signed a contract for SV Wurzburg 05 in Germany for their Natioal Water Polo League Session. He moved out there on the 31st of august and was training with them for 3 weeks before he went to Italy to play in the Len trophy.
Alex Parsonage
Alex Parsonage has represented Britain since U16 level and competed at the U16 and U18 European Championships as well as the World Junior Championships.
He competed at the Commonwealth Tournament in 2006 and played professionally for two years with French side Strasbourg before returning to Great Britain.
Alex is now playing in the Dutch National League for UZSC were he is one of their main players. Alex is ready to return back to Manchester in February.
Duncan Holmes & Mike Hesketh
Team Manager and Committee member Duncan Holmes and vice president Mike Hesketh have both been selected as technical officials for the London 2012 Olympics. 
Duncan and Mike found out recently after receiving a letter from the London Organising Committee after several years of preparation and training. They have both trained as table officials, in fact they both did the same course in Manchester several years ago.
Since that time they have officiated at the European B championships at Manchester and several other international events as well as the inter regional, ASA and British Championship events. Both are currently honing their skills at British Water Polo League events are thrilled to have been selected.
In preparation for the Olympics both will have to attend a FINA school at the British Championships and the water polo test event in London during May 2012.
Zak Sly, Scott Sharpe & Lewis Peach
Lancaster Coach Zak Sly players Scott Sharpe and Lewis Peach have been offered a one in a life time opportunity to be part of the London Olympic 2012 Games Makers Program. they will be joined by four other North West members James Salt (City of Manchester), Tom Grieve (Carlisle) and Anthony McGuinness (Bridgefield).
In September both coaches, Zak and Anthony filled in an application form for a North West team to be ball retrievers at the 2012 Water Polo Olympics. After passing the application round Zak and Anthony got invited to London on the 27th October for an Interview.
Zak started his long journey to London by car at 7.00am. Zak first stop was to drive to Crewe train station and to meet up with Anthony and go rest of the way by train. Zak and Anthony were due to Leave Crewe train station at 9.50 but due to some thieves steeling some cabling the train got cancelled.
After 30 more minutes of traveling on the London Underground the two coaches arrived at the Barclays Bank and headed up to the 32ndfloor for the interview. The interview seemed to go well and the lads headed back home feeling confident they did well!
Just five days later the e-mail came out congratulating the North West team for successfully getting the job of one out of five teams to be ball retrievers for the Olympics!
