Bradford Girls Grammar School pupil, nine-year-old Heather Shutt was the surprise package of the Yorkshire Closed table tennis championship at Armley Sports Centre, Leeds.

Heather who lives at Baildon won the Under-17s competition.

Early on in the tournament Heather struggled to find her form in the Under-12s and Under-14s events, but after disappointment there she was determined not to go home empty handed and in the final groups of play-offs she beat girls much older than herself from Leeds and Hull to win the Under-17s title.

She has been working with the Bradford Junior Development Scheme for two years at Eccleshill, Nab Wood, and Thornton Sports Centres.

The three city of Bradford schools arrived with high hopes at the English Schools North of England team play-offs at Pontefract, but it soon became apparent that they were up against some strong opposition.

Despite that Bradford came back with a second and two third places, but Bradford Boys Grammar School under-13s ran out of luck as they lost their last match 5-3 to Park View Barrow.

Final positions: 2 Bradford Boys GS Under-13s (David White, Andrew Woodhead, Alex Runham, Stephen Denny) two wins and one loss; 3 Bradford Girls GS Under-11s (Nicola White, Heather Shutt, Saira George, Rebecca Ross, Sara Kaddour and Sheveaughin Gill) with one win and two losses; 3 Queensbury Boys Under-19s (Ian Parker, Ben Charlcraft, Jayesh Mistery and Jonathan Charlcraft) with one draw and one loss.

City of Bradford Under-17s girls team triumphed over Hull, Lancashire and Cleveland teams to win the National Woolwich Junior League which was played over three weekends at the Armley Sports Centre at Leeds.

The three girls were Nicola Harrison, aged 15, Nicola White, 11, and Heather Shutt, nine.

They only lost one match. Nicola White shared the individual averages with Stacey Brown from Cleveland both girls winning 16 out of their 18 matches.

The girls have all come through a junior development scheme at Eccleshill, Nab Wood, and Thornton sports centres.

Clayton Heights Boys haven't lost a match so far and are in a winning position at the same competition for boys with matches to play.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.