U16 County Squad

Welcome

Squad Facts

Players born in 2007 or 2008 are eligible for the Under 16 squad. Trials for the squad were held in June 2022, and we selected 30 players:

Girls: Aahna Bhatia, Jess Burden, Chenara De Silva, Aayushi Dhelaria, Aditi Dhelaria, Khadeeja Kanani, Zainab Fatima Karim, Neha Kubair, Mishika Khurana, Isabelle Lee, Khushi Madha, Amiya Mehta, Zainab Fatima Merali, Raeya Patel, Diya Prakash, Anna Stewart.

Boys: Aqeel Bhimani, Ray Chen, Jaxon Clarke, Eliot Horgan, Aditi Jhureley, Jeff Ani Joseph, Vincent Lee, Shaurya Madan, Harrison McCarthy, Fraser McKillop, Suhail Merali, Dylan Morgan, Vishvan Nirmalan, Taha Rashid.

Many of these players already had a national singles grading at the start of the 2022/23 season:

• Grade D: Aahna Bhatia
• Grade E: Jaxon Clarke, Jess Burden
• Grade F: Jeff Ani Joseph, Aditi Dhelaria, Anna Stewart
• Grade G: Aayushi Dhelaria, Chenara De Silva
• Grade H: Diya Prakash, Vincent Lee
• Grade I: Eliot Horgan, Shaurya Madan, Neha Kubair, Isabelle Lee, Khushi Madha, Dylan Morgan, Raeya Patel
• Grade J: Aqeel Bhimani, Ray Chen, Fraser McKillop, Taha Rashid, Amiya Mehta

The squad meets for training on Wednesday evenings from 7.30 - 9.30pm in the following weeks:

• 7 September - 19 October 2022 (7 weeks)
• 2 November - 21 December 2022 (8 weeks)
• 11 January - 8 February 2023 (5 weeks)
• 22 February - 29 March 2023 (6 weeks)
• 19 April - 24 May 2023 (6 weeks)

The training sessions are held at:

• Hertfordshire Sports Village, University of Hertfordshire De Havilland campus, Hatfield AL10 9EU

COACHING

The squad is managed and coaching is provided at the training sessions by two coaches, qualified with Badminton England Certificates:

• Stephanie Stockwell (M: 07792 650485, e-mail: u16manager@hjba.org.uk)
• Ben Vranjkovic (M: 07983 504989, e-mail: clubs@hjba.org.uk)

Tournaments

Tournament play, underpinned by regular high quality training, is the most effective way to improve as a player, developing your own skills and learning from other successful players. So we encourage members of the squad to compete regularly in these events.

All squad players should compete in the HJBA tournaments at their own age group and ideally, for an extra challenge, in some of the older age group events as well. For details about the tournaments please click on the Tournaments menu button or here. To download entry forms please click on the Downloads menu button or here.

We also expect squad members to play at least four Badminton England tournaments during the season, though more ambitious players will play many more. Performances in these tournaments count towards gradings in the national ranking system. Entry forms are available from the Badminton England website. Click here to go to the relevant BE page.

Please keep the coaches up-to-date with your results at these tournaments.

Matches

We play inter-county matches as follows;

• Shires League, a season-long competition with play-offs and then a national finals day in May. In 2022/23 we are again running two Under 16 teams in the League.
• Friendlies, arranged as the calendar permits.

Selection will be on merit, but we also try to give all squad members opportunities to develop by playing competitively for Hertfordshire.

Details of Shires League fixtures and results can be found on the Badminton England website here.