Capacity audience see 5 WGUK champions crowned

On Saturday 2nd April a capacity audience of over 1,000 people saw five new WGUK Champions crowned at Ponds Forge International Centre at the 32nd British Winterguard Championships which incorporated the 4th British Indoor Percussion Championships.

The day kicked off with the Open Prelims (which determined the order of performance for the evening Finals) featuring six units and in a change to tradition no scores were announced during this part of the day - just the ranking of the units following their performance. Mayflower came out top with Northern Academy 2nd and Kidsgrove Scouts 3rd but no one knew how close (or far away) their scores were from each other.

The eight unit A Class Championships gave us the top 3, of (alphabetically) Avengers, Mayflower & Southern Knights, to move forward to the Play Offs. The largest class this season was the Junior Class with thirteen units and in a twist of fate their Championships moved the same guards into the Play Offs as 2010 - Mayflower, Southern Knights and SPICE. The scores for these units are not announced and so the performance order for both the Play Offs was drawn live in front of the audience.

In the Cadet Class Championships there were seven units and Anchormen Cadets were victorious as Champions with a score of 87.90 with the Silver Medal going to South West Academy (87.40) and the Bronze Medal winners were Southern Knights Rugrats (85.80).

The Indoor Percussion Championships featured three units in competition (plus an exhibition by The Company Concert Ensemble) with the Senators taking top spot with a score of 88.17. The previous three years winners, Vintage, came in second (76.33) and Nexus in 3rd (56.83)

The Junior Class Play Offs placed last years Champions, Southern Knights back in the top spot scoring 91.80 with SPICE in 2nd (86.40) and Mayflower 3rd (85.90)

For the A Class Play Offs, Southern Knights scored 91.70 putting them in Gold Medal position for the 3rd year in row with Mayflower taking Silver (86.80) and Avengers the Bronze (84.70)

Finally the Open Class Finals saw Mayflower hold onto the Gold medal spot for the 2nd year in a row to be crowned UK Champions with a score of 91.00 with Northern Academy only just missing out and so coming in a very closed 2nd place (90.80) and Kidsgrove Scouts taking the Bronze (87.40).

And so with over 50 performances competed the 2011 WGUK Championships closed with standing ovations for the competing units and an atmosphere and excitement not felt at a Finals event for a few years.  On behalf of all the performing members a huge thank you to the audience who really bought the proceedings to life by supporting the units so well over the whole day to make the day one to remember for a long time to come.

WGUK would like to thank all the 2011 competing units for, once again, providing both entertaining and stunning performances over the winter and we look forward to the 33rd consecutive winter season in 2012.

Full Recap Sheets for all the scores at the British Championships (and all other WGUK 2011 contests) can be found at www.wguk.org.uk.