This was a hugely significant week in the history of Worthing SC because I am pleased to say that our application to join the National Water Polo league for the 2009 season was accepted at the league's AGM in Birmingham last Sunday.

The competition will run from September to December and we will join in the 4th Division playing against teams from all over the UK.

The league is now played on a tournament basis at centralized venues around England and each team plays 3 matches at each weekend. This will involve nights away and a fair amount of traveling but we have decided to make this decision to take the club forward.

We have already started to look a program of innovative fundraising and sponsorship because this type of national competition is not cheap to participate in and we are determined to make the most of the opportunity.

The club has been involved with competitive water polo since it's inception in 1890 and were runners-up in the National cup competition in 1905 but this entry into the National league is a result of the development program of the past few years. We hope that many of the junior players, including those who are just starting out playing, will now have the opportunity to play in National competition for Worthing.

On Wednesday evening we played a home friendly match against Sevenoaks and before the match a presentation was made.

Peter "Budgie" Baxter was a hugely popular player and referee in Sussex for many years and unfortunately he passed away in 2007. His widow Fiona has presented a trophy in his memory to Sussex County which is awarded to the leading goalscorer in the County league competition.

The first winner for the 2008 season was Worthing member Matt White with an impressive 41 goals.

Unfortunately Matt left for Japan on Tuesday as part of his "gap year" but Fiona presented the trophy to his father Graham on the pool side at the Aquarena.

(Dave, please use picture 009 with this report)

Match Report.

Worthing 22, Sevenoaks 7 (Quarter Scores; - 4-2, 8-2, 6-1, 4-2)

This was a highly entertaining match that was played in good spirits by both teams.

We fell behind early on the match but we soon found our scoring touch and eventually ran out relatively easy winners.

All the squad played well but junior Alexander Cranford had a fine game in goal making a number of good saves.

It was nice to see 9 of our squad of 12 on the score sheet which demonstrated the depth we have available.

Scorers; - Scott Martin 5, Richard Hooper 4, Paul Phillpott 4, Dominic Cranford 3, Sam Abbott 2, Elliott Ellison 1, Scott Orchard 1, Andy Cawdray 1, Nathan Hart 1.

Exclusions; - Richard Hooper 1, Paul Phillpott 1

Remaining Squad; - Alexander Cranford, Jon Gray, Rob Osborne,

The next competitive fixtures are Basingstoke in the SE regional tournament on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th January when we will be playing matches against Southampton, Oxford, Jersey and Cranleigh.