By ADAM LAZZARI ALAN TODD took over the Neale-Wade Gymnastics Club 10 years ago, when they had about 10 members. There are now approximately 140 gymnasts training regularly at the club at Neale-Wade Sports Centre in March. The club won 24 gold medals, 19

By ADAM LAZZARI

ALAN TODD took over the Neale-Wade Gymnastics Club 10 years ago, when they had about 10 members.

There are now approximately 140 gymnasts training regularly at the club at Neale-Wade Sports Centre in March.

The club won 24 gold medals, 19 silvers and six bronzes at their latest competition - the ECGA Level One and Two Apparatus Championship in Peterborough last month.

Todd is now looking to expand the club even further.

He said: "We need to find our own premises. This would allow us to train for more hours and we could do things like mothers and toddlers clubs and birthday parties, which would help us to improve.

"Gymnastics is one of those sports where you need to train for as many hours as possible and if we had our own place we could leave the equipment out and the gymnasts could train every night if they wanted to.

"It costs a lot of money to run a gymnastics club and we need to have lots of members to keep it going. Having our own premises would make it a lot easier for us to secure funding from grants."

Club members are aged five to 15 and training sessions are held on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Anyone that could help the club find a new premises or interested in joining the club should call Todd on 01354 692437.

The club is planning to compete in a friendly competition in Malta in the summer places are available.

Contact Todd for more details.

Twelve clubs brought 181 gymnasts to the ECGA Championships in Peterborough and Neale-Wade Gymnastics Club brought home 29.5 per cent of the medals in the categories they entered.

The club would like to thank all of the coaches for their hard work in preparing the gymnasts for this competition.