Para Swimming event comes to Formby with Swim England

If you build it they will come…

The people of Formby have needed a swimming pool for such along time and in 2007 after years of wishing, planning and fund raising a pool ‘thankfully & gratefully’ arrived.

Big thanks to all those who contributed, although this isn’t the story of a struggle to fund and build our pool, but a story about the start of something bigger that followed the build and the next stage in that development.

After the pool was built and opened in 2007, the people came, kids joined the learn to swim classes and learnt to swim, then they started racing and training and Formby Swimming Club was born.

The Club is under the control of head coach, Paul Cumberbatch ably assisted by assistant head coaches, Dave Jones and Meg Langley and practically all of the Birtles family who have swam and coached at the Club along with an army of other coaches some of whom are employed by Formby Pool and others who are volunteers.

After becoming affiliated to the Amateur Swimming Association of Great Britain, the Club started competing in competitive swimming galas coming up against clubs with significant pedigree.

During the past few years, Formby have gained promotion and are now in Division 2 of the Merseyside and District Junior Swimming League and aiming to continue closing the gap between these other clubs and ourselves.

A marvellous achievement for such a young Club when some of our peers have been in existence for over a century!

There are now over 150 swimmers training at the club and available for selection in competitions and we train three nights a week.

So the Club is performing well and is popular with its members, there are plans to commence land based training in the foreseeable future, to enter a wider range of competitions and enroll all members in the ASA.

Following the success in Rio 2016, the FSC Committee looked at how the Club worked with para swimmers and realised that there was no pre-planned pathway for para swimmers to approach the Club and become involved in competitive swimming. So we thought we would do something about this.

Para swimming is regular swimming adapted for athletes with disabilities, swimmers are classified according to the nature and extent of their disability, which enables swimmers with similar levels of function to compete against each other.

Formby Pool has always invited disabled swimmers to the site and offered swimming opportunities so it seemed sensible for the Swimming Club and Formby Pool to come together and develop this facility for competitive swimmers within the Club.

The Club approached British Swimming and were put in contact with specialist advisors at Swim England, who have worked in partnership with the Club to train staff and set up a specialist para swimming trial event.

Through this significant investment, wannabe para swimmers now have the chance to attend Formby Swimming Club on Sunday 14 May 2017, to have a trial swim.

This is a search for committed individuals with real swimming potential to attend the pool, people who want to swim, race and train on a regular basis and a desire win medals, but at the same time we also want to hear from people who are just considering starting down this route and want to know more about para swimming and give it a try.

So if you have a disability and would like to try swimming why don’t you get in touch and book into our para swim event.

The event in May is for people who can already swim, but non swimmers please get in touch and we will sort something out to get you in the water.

So there are no age limits, no gender preferences, just get in touch and we’ll take it from there. Register for the event using the form below or contact chris.armstrong@swimming.org Moble: 07787 269 306 alternatively email Formby Swimming club at: galaadmin@formbyswimmingclub.co.uk

Look forward to seeing you there!