Tuesday 13th September 2016 Merchant Taylors’ swimming team opened their season with a home match against Manchester Grammar School. Our new year 7 swimmers proved to be a good addition to the team with many great swims notably from J Carney and A Curd to win their age group 39 points to 37. Joseph Cameron-Mansour lead the battle of the Under 13’s with two fine wins swimming 50 freestyle in 30 sec. Their score was a 2 point lose 36-38. All the under 15’s put in a great effort with George Wyn- Jones winning a great battle in the 5om freestyle. Despite their effort they lost by 6 Points. Throughout the match the lead changed with every swim, but special praise must go to the Open team C Leece, M Johnson, J Spinks and 3 great new additions to the team, S Davies, Issac Lea and Y Cai. Despite all their efforts we were only 2 point ahead going into the last event the open 4x50m Freestyle relay meaning it was all down to the last race. I have never seen an MGS open team suffer such a defeat, the open teams victory took them to a massive win 45 points to 24. Overall the final result was MTS 155 MGS 147 giving only our second win over MGS in 20 years.

Lancs U14 cup final v Bolton School

September 9th 2016

Merchant Taylors’ Under 14 team won the county cup for the second year in succession after comprehensively defeating Bolton School at Blackpool Cricket Club.

Bolton won the toss and elected to bat first but made little progress against the opening attack of Alex Barker (2 wickets) and Josh Carberry. Oliver Green took a stunning catch at gully to dismiss the first batsman. The change bowlers, Rob Rankin and Oliver Green ensured that Merchants remained well on top with the run rate slowed down to a crawl. With Bolton under severe pressure Harvey Rankin and Jackson Darkes-Sutcliffe continued to confuse the batsmen with spin and Harvey took 3 wickets to leave Bolton in severe trouble with six wickets down. Rob Rankin’s return for a second spell finished their resistance completely, taking 4 wickets in 2 overs. Bolton’s final total of 88 all out in 32 overs was nowhere near enough to challenge the strong Merchants batting line-up.

Rob Rankin (41) and Jackson Darkes-Sutcliffe (21 not out) put the game beyond doubt with an opening partnership of over 70. With the score on 82 for 2 heavy rain brought an end to proceedings but Merchant Taylors’ were way above the run rate required to win an interrupted game. All the boys should be congratulated on another splendid season which has culminated in this knock-out success. They will now go forward to represent the county in the national stages of the competition as an Under 15 team in 2017.

The squad was as follows:

Jackson Darkes-Sutcliffe (Captain), Robert Rankin, Harvey Rankin, George Politis, Oliver Green, Oliver Meadows, Alex Barker, Scott Thompson, Harry Whitehurst, Josh Carberry, George Hopwood, Jay Singh, Marcus Miller.