THE multi-award winning amateur sports club, Halifax Synchronised Swimming Club, who were unsuccessful in their campaign to persuade Calderdale Council to include deep water in their plans for the new pool at North Bridge Leisure Centre, have once again been announced as Yorkshire Champions after competing this week at John Charles Aquatic Centre in Leeds in the Swim England Regional Yorkshire Competition.

However, the committee and members of the 22-year old club has taken the decision to move their affiliation from Calderdale to Bradford and this weekend competed, not as Halifax Synchro, but as City of Bradford Artistic Swimming, reviving this division of the City of Bradford Swimming Club which closed some years ago.

The club, which counts Team GB artistic swimmer, Isobel Davies, as a member, beat local rivals from City of Leeds, Sheffield and Borough of Kirklees to retain the Millennium Cup for the highest scoring Yorkshire Club. There have only been two occasions in the past ten years where the club has not been awarded the best club in Yorkshire. They now compete again in two weeks at the National Combo Cup at the Olympic Pool in London.

The team which won last year’s national Combo Cup Championship for the highest category, 13-18 years Division 2, Diamonds, once again won gold at the Yorkshire Cup and they were joined by their Rubies team who were also named as champions in the “15 and under” age group. Sapphires in the 13-18 years division 1 category and Topaz in the “12 and under” age group both won silver medals. These teams, along with the Emeralds team in the 13-15 age group all contributed towards the highest score overall.

The club were also awarded a total of 10 medals for swimmers in the individual figures, solo and duet competitions.

Since the Halifax Pool was abruptly closed without any notice, the club were forced to move their training location to Todmorden and they also privately hired Rishworth School pool. However, this still meant that their training hours were hugely reduced and costs became prohibitive.

Team Manager, Kirsty McGregor, commented “We always knew that training in Todmorden and Rishworth wasn’t sustainable for the club in the long-term and due to the increased cost and travelling time, we have already lost two thirds of the club’s members. Only 36 swimmers competed for us at the weekend, compared to over 100 before the pandemic. We used to train 10-12 hours per week in Halifax Pool, but since our pool closed, we have been restricted to only 4 hours.

I am especially delighted that our oldest girls, some of whom have competed for our club for 10 years and now need to leave the junior ranks, can be proud that they have retained their championship despite all the disruption and restrictions we were under due to our training facilities being removed.

And our youngest team members are now showing that they will also be strong swimmers and will help us form the basis of the rebuild of the club under our new name in the Bradford area.”