Thirty three Southport Swimming club swimmers qualified for the North West Regions (formerly known as the Northern Counties) Age Group Swimming Championships over two weekends at the beginning of June. They were held at the 50 meter Commonwealth Pool in Manchester with competitors coming from the Scottish boarder down the Pennines to the north midlands including the Isle of Man National Team. This competition is ranked the second biggest in the country behind the National Championships.
The town's team competed against the best from the North West. The bulk of the other swimmers were swimming in council linked, squad based clubs. These clubs usually have two or more full time professional coaches and access to unlimited pool time, morning and night. The Southport Team had a large contingent of qualifiers compared to most clubs and was given immense support from the followers. The swimmers competed tremendously well and placed the Towns team firmly on the swimming map. In total they won 37 medals and had 48 other finalist. These fantastic results placed the club in overall third position in the top club award out pointing some of the countries top clubs like City of Manchester Aquatics, City of Liverpool, City of Salford, Wigan Best, City of Chester and Oldham Aquatics. In the top 13 Club positions Southport were one of only two non council backed clubs and non full time professional outfits. An outstanding achievement by all the swimmers. In more than one final, four out of the eight competitors came from Southport and in one of the finals Southport had five swimmers competing. The only two clubs to out point the towns elite swimmers were the amalgamation of a number of the Lancashire clubs under the name ‘Gallica’ and Stockport Metro who have been the top club in the Britain on more than one occasion recently.
The medal winners were: -
10yr boys Josh Moniz, Ryan Rimmer, Daniel Boal, Josh Chapman, David Gillard and Ashley Rogers,
11yr boys Jordan Macdonald Sam Delmonte, Cameron Fenton,
13yr boys Jack Scott,
11yrs girls Charlotte Disley and Lauren Cheston. All the above made other event finals.

Other Southport finalists were: -
10yrs boys Charlie Hayward and Calum Burns,
11yrs boys Ethan Williams, Jack Swainson,
12yrs boys Oliver Fairway, Elliot Otty,
13yrs Keiren Macdonald and Sam Rooney,
14yr old Stephen Taylor.
Girl finalist include: -
10yr Eleanor Morris,
13yr Grace Rodwell and Liz Simpkin.

The rest of the qualifiers were: -
11yr Sophie Wilcock, Olivia Marshall, Beth Hill, Olivia Petrie and Jade Forster,
12yr old Catherine Gradwell,
11yr boys Reece Rogers,
12yr Joseph Whiteside,
13yr John McNeill.

Taking the North West results into account nationally a number of the Southport Swimming Clubs swimmers are now ranked in the top few in their age groups in Britain.
Ryan Rimmer ranked no 1 10yr Breaststroker,
Josh Moniz ranked no 1 10yr Backstroker,
Jordan Macdonald ranked top 3 in all the 11yr butterfly events,
Sam Delmonte ranked 3rd in the 11yr 100m backstroke and top 6 in the 200m,
Jack Scott top three in the13yrs 200m butterfly,
Laura Halsall top four 14yrs 50m Frontcrawl,
Lauren Cheston 11yrs top three in the 100m,200mm and 400m front crawl, and top 6 in the 200m IM,
Charlotte Disley 11yrs top 6 in the 200m butterfly and 200 IM.
With all these young stars now coming through the future looks bright for the club with 10 National qualifiers.