England’s women (Kirsty Balfour, Caroline Reed, Claire Grimwood, Joan Reed and Sarah McVey) struck gold at the European Championships in Fuessen, Germany today when they won the final of the B Division by defeating Netherlands. This had followed a defeat of Norway in the semi-finals which was a shock for the Scandinavians.

There has been much controversy in the B Division this week regarding the playing system but the English women let it all flow over their heads and knuckled down to playing their games.

After a first game defeat in their group by Netherlands they have now won 6 in a row and will be hoping to extend that when they play the Czech Republic  later today for the last European place in the World Championships in Vernon, British Columbia in March.

Whatever the results of the three games against the Czechs, England will be playing in the A Division of the European Championships next year, for the first time since 2003.

The men’s team qualified from their group in second place with just the one loss, to Latvia, and then defeated Hungary in a qualifying game before losing to Spain in the second qualifier.

England’s women failed in their attempt to get to the 2008 World Championships when they were defeated by 2 games to 0 by the Czech Republic. The first game was the third they had played in one day following the emotional highs of defeating Norway and the Netherlands to win the gold medal and they started off as they had finished by taking a 6-2 lead early on. However the Czechs rallied and won the game 9-7. Less than 12 hours later they were back on the ice for their 4th game in 24 hours and this time the Czechs were too strong and won by 11-6.

It is notable that the women achieved their success with minimal finacial help - the ECA has provided the team with some cash but insufficient to enable them to fund many of the extras now needed to get to the top in the sport - qualified coaches, trips to foreign competitions and extra training weekends. Three of the team live in the Northumberland area, but one lives in Brighton and the alternate lives in Glasgow and so it can be difficult and expensive to get together for those vital team practices.

Anybody reading this who feels that they could help should get in touch through the Contacts page with the ECA secretary.

You can find a picture of our gold medal winning girls on the European Curling Federation website www.ecf-web.org

Three new pages have been added to this website providing i) information about the ECA policy on drugs, ii) the current season’s competition calendar and iii) information on ECA office bearers and club contacts.