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St Phillips Scout Hut Bootle Kirkby S C St Thomas Seaforth Fazakerley S C
Honours Fixtures & Results Committee
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The Hilltop club was formed in 1971 by Dave & Lynn Evans, members of Littlewoods Badminton Club, to cater for junior badminton players that senior clubs in the area would not take on.
The first season was spent learning the game and playing a couple of friendlies against Blundellsands Methodist juniors. We lost both of these games 8-0. Our venue at that time was St Philips Litherland which has now been demolished.
The following season we entered the Liverpool League , Division 7, and promptly lost our first five matches followed by a home draw with Post Office Telephones. Two new ladies were then signed, Ann Wainwright & Yvonne Carberry, adding much needed strength to that part of the team. We then beat A.T.E. 3rd team 5-3 away from home and it was another five years before we lost another league match by which time we were on the verge of promotion to Division One. At this time the 1st team men were Mike McDonald ( our first player to represent Lancashire ) Harry Kennedy ( later to win a 1st division championship with Ranworth) Steve & Derek Wolfenden.
In the mid seventies Dave & Lynn emigrated to New Zealand and Alan Wolfenden, also of Littlewoods B.C. took over as secretary. A crisis took place in the middle of his first season with the club as the church decided to sell the hall to be converted into a factory. A new court was found in a scout hut in Bootle and this remained our home for two years until we moved to Kirkby Sports Centre in 1978. A rapid expansion of the club saw us running three teams and having most of the best juniors in Liverpool of that era on our books.
However, a disaster was only just averted during season 1980/81 when the price of shuttles rocketed and the cost of courts at the sports centre seemed to increase every few weeks. To survive we decided that we must cut our costs dramatically and we moved back into a one court hall at St Thomas in Seaforth where we remained until 1997. A third team was re-entered into the league after a few years absence in 1997 and was made up mostly of juniors. After a slow start they imposed themselves on Division Four, winning their last six matches to finish 4th and gaining promotion as the league was restructured to make way for some new teams in the bottom division. During the course of that season 3rd teamer Cheryl Honeyman was selected to represent England Under 14's.
Season 1997/98 saw us successfully move to Fazakerley Sports Centre, with the 1st team finishing runners up to Occasionals for the 3rd successive season, the 2nd team dramatically pulling themselves out of the bottom two in their final match on games difference, and the 3rd team finishing in 2nd place in Division Three, once again on games difference. In 1998/99 we entered a team into the 4th division of the Lancashire multi-court league and finished the season with a 100% record despite using 16 different players from all 4 league teams in the matches.
The start of the 1999/2000 saw a group of German youngsters visit us for a week in August on an exchange visit. (See Tus Br�ckel ) Member at that time Alex Hird was also selected for England Under 17's.
Season 2000/01 saw a big change with the merger with English Electric, a move to Bootle Stadium and a change of name to Electric Hilltop but two years later we reverted to Hilltop after all the former English Electric players had left the club for one reason or another.
Of the small group of players that entered the league all those years ago I am now Chairman and Derek Wolfenden is Secretary and responsible for the Junior Section.
