On the 14th of June several team members made the trip to Swansea, Wales to represent Silver City Blues at the British National Masters Long Course Meet 2019. As a result, the team secured an array of achievements from personal bests all the way to European records.

Friday Session 1 first saw the team competing in the 800m Freestyle with Gillian Main confirming her long course converted time from Inverclyde last year with only a second on. Next an impressive swim from Alison Findlater going out with a commanding lead from the start and holding to the end, taking an impressive 37 seconds off her entry and securing a Bronze medal. June Falconer continued her return to the pool securing a Bronze medal whilst Keith Dunnett continues to build race experience for the World Masters Championships. Kelly McIntosh continued her good form this year taking 3 seconds off her entry time and both securing a Gold medal and a Scottish record. Finally, Audrey Cooper continues her record-breaking year, securing a gold medal and a European record.

Session 2 had Gillian and Alison competing first in the 100m Freestyle, Alison again taking 2 seconds off her entry time. Next was Peter Long and Chris Ferguson getting their first swims in, again in the 100m Freestyle with Peter just missing his entry time by 7 hundredths. The session finished with the 400m IM with June, Kelly and Keith all securing Silver medals and Kelly also breaking a Scottish record. Not content with one European record for the day, Audrey secured a gold and broke a second record. Time for some ice cream.

Session 3 saw Keith competing in the 200m Breaststroke and Kelly in the 50m Back. Kelly finishing the day with another Silver and a Scottish record.

Saturday Session 4 firstly had June in the 100m Butterfly securing another Silver medal. Next was Keith, Alison and Audrey in the 200m Backstroke, Keith securing a Bronze medal whilst Audrey claimed a Gold and a Scottish record. Audrey, Peter, Alison and Chris then swam in the 200m Mixed Medley Relay finishing in 4th position.

Session 5 kicked off with Peter, Gillian and June in the 200m Freestyle, Gillian taking an impressive 5 seconds off her entry from British last year whilst Peter secured a Silver medal. The session finished with Keith in the 100m Breaststroke and Alison in the 50m Butterfly taking just under a second off her entry.

Session 6 started with Keith, Alison and Audrey in the 200m IM, Alison again dropping a second off her entry time. Audrey secured another Gold medal and this time a British record. Peter, Chris and Gillian finished day 2 with the 50m Freestyle. Time for some team nutrition and hydration in the usual SCB fashion.

Sunday Session 7 began with Gillian, Alison, Audrey, June and Greg Smedley in the 400m Freestyle, Gillian dropped 9 seconds off her entry whilst another powerful swim from Alison saw her drop 19 seconds and secure a Bronze medal. Last swim from Audrey securing her final Gold and European record. Chris, Gillian, Alison and Peter finished the session with the 200m Mixed Freestyle relay finishing in 4th position.

Peter started off the final session with strong 50m Breaststroke taking off a full second against his entry and finishing joint 1st with Mark Jones of Warrender in the same heat. One final swim from Silver City saw Greg, Alison, Gillian and Peter in the 400m Mixed Freestyle relay race off against the Aylesbury 160 team and secure the last Gold medal of the competition (almost, they’d run out by this point).

In all it was a great competition with a lot of success as a result of hard work. Overall out of 174 teams competing, SCB finished joint 16^th. Well done team.

The open water season started on the 1st June with the first event at Lochore Meadows Country Park in Fife. Silver City Blues were represented by Kelly McIntosh, Gillian Main, Will Moir and Brian Bain who all took part in the 2 km race.  Kelly and Gillian took the first two places in the women’s […]

A Report from Dianne Fraser ASV was unavailable for our usual training on 25th May so 10 of the SCB swimmers and friends decided to walk the 589 m hill. We thoroughly enjoyed being deep in the countryside, so quiet and peaceful, and getting to know our swim pals and friends better. “Clachnaben” is seemingly […]

On the 19th and 20th of April the club competed in the Scottish Masters Championships in Edinburgh. A fuller report will follow but the highlights were as follows. The club retained the top club trophy, winning it for a 20th time in the 23 occasions it has been contested.  REN 96 were runner-up with Heart […]

On Sunday the 10th of March, Silver City Blues took part in it’s first Inter-Continental Dual-Meet with Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada. An idea thought up by Bill Nash of the Grand Prairie Club to enable his swimmers to compete in real-time against other clubs without having to travel to location. It was the intention to […]

The 1st of February saw a small contingent of five SCB team members travel to Carlsile for their annual Masters meet. This year the meet would specially commemorate Graham Pearson who was a big personality within the Carlisle club as well as British Masters swimming as a whole. The team certainly left their mark with […]

Report by Ailsa Main Photos by Brian Battensby and Kelly Borland On the 26th of January a large SCB team of 32 descended upon ASV and it was a great competition for all this year. Thank you to everyone who took part and helped out in setting up the competition. A special thanks goes to […]

The results of the 2018 British Masters Swimming Decatlon have now been made final and confirms good results for a number of Silver City Blues swimmers. Audrey Cooper finished in third place and this achievement was shared by Martin Snape. With over 2100 swimmers ranked in the men’s event and over 1700 in the women’s […]

A Report by Alison Findlater On the 12th January 2019 Silver City Blues held their annual quiz night. This year we had a new venue – The Royal British Legion in Bridge of Don. This was an excellent venue with plenty of space, our own barman and exceptionally cheap drinks! The quizmaster for the night […]

A Report by Ailsa Main The last quarter of the year started with six of our swimmers visiting the Slovenia to compete in the biggest competition of the year the European Masters Championships in September. The team of Kelly McIntosh, Greg Smedley, Gillian Main, Alison Pirie, Brian Bain and Louise Kennedy swam many exciting events […]