PIONEER 79 Swimming Club got their North West Micro League up and running at the Dunes, Southport.

The Accrington-based club were up against teams from Leyland, Garston and Southport for round one of the Division A meet.

The Micro League is a Nationwide competition, split into regions and Pioneer have been competing in the top division for the last eight years.

The Micro League consists of young swimmers competing in four age groups (nine-12 years) and is held over four separate rounds.

It consists of a combination of individual and relay events in each round.

In the league, the relays are 25m legs (one length) and individual races are 50m (two lengths) except for the nine-year-old swimmers who swim 25m individual events.

The 4 galas take place between February and July, following which, depending on the overall points total in each division, teams may be involved in a promotion/relegation swim off or ‘grand final’ in early autumn in order to determine the Champion Team for each Division/Region.

The Micro-League galas are extremely well supported and can be extremely noisy, parents tend to find that ear plugs are a necessity for the final event of each round, the canon, this is an event where the fastest free-styler in each age group form a relay, alternating male/female consisting of 8 swimmers in each team – without doubt always an exciting race.

Pioneer 79’s ‘Micro League Team’ this year have been kindly sponsored by Southern’s Solicitors in Burnley, and en-route to the competition, the swimmers were presented with specially sponsored T-Shirts which they wore throughout the event with pride.

After the opening 12 events and a rollercoaster of great swims and unfortunate disqualifications due to tiny errors, Pioneer 79 - who have been sponsored by Southern’s Solicitors in Burnley - found themselves lying in third position, just four points behind Southport in second place and two points ahead of Garston, with 25 points.

At the half way point, after a great run of results, including a few wins, Pioneer 79 had racked up 57 points.

However, they were still third in the points table - 10 points behind Southport but 15 points ahead of Garston.

The next quarter proved to be extremely exciting with many close races, however Pioneer’s position in the overall standings remained the same.

After 49 events, the final results were: Leyland 1st-150 points, Southport 2nd-140 points, Pioneer 79 3rd-109 points and Garston 4th-85 points.

Pioneer 79 will now be hoping they can make the most of home advantage when they host round two at Accrington Academy on April 24 where they will take on teams from Everton, Carnforth and Garston.

Coach Steve Davison said: “I would like to congratulate our swimmers on a great ‘team’ performance. To finish third is very good in what was a very tough gala.

"I have to also applaud everyone on the great family team spirit across the club.

"The effort both in and out of the pool by each and every one of you was outstanding.

"We will be looking to keep up the great work as we move on to round two next month.”

Pioneer 79 Swimming Club are seeking willing Companies to Sponsor other ‘Teams’ within the Club, especially the ‘Arena League’ and ‘Mini League’ Teams on a 12/24 or 36 month basis. If you are interested or know of anyone that may be interested in sponsoring one of our extremely successful teams, please feel free to contact – pioneer79minileague@gmail.com for more information.