It was fantastic just to get our players out on Whit Friday playing and competing after having had no contests for the past two years. We only had three players that had ever done Whit Friday previously so to say that we were inexperienced would be an understatement. The band met up at Carrbrook and played second band on the stand following Elland Silver. We had lots of support and received a fantastic reception before setting off on our evening of fun. We played at every venue in Tameside, which is nine contests in total. We managed to get on to play without too many queues behind other bands. After playing we stayed Dukinfield for a barbecue and then onto Heyrod without longest wait behind six other bands.
So how did we do? We won the Youth Band 1st prize at Carrbrook, Hurst Cross and Stalybridge, we came second at Denton and we were awarded the Steward’s prize at Droylsden. This meant that overall, we were runners up for the whole of the Tameside area in the Youth Section behind Macclesfield Youth Band (they take players from the age of 7 up to 18 and have 120 players in their organisation ) with HD9 Youth coming third overall. I am so proud of our players who were an absolute credit to both our school and their families in the way they conducted themselves all night. The reception we got at Top Mossley was amazing – it made all the hard work over the last 6 months worthwhile.