STUDENTS and staff at Eggar’s School have held their first ever ‘Celebration of Sport’.

The idea of last Wednesday’s event was to promote, share and celebrate all the sporting success that Eggar’s students had achieved over the past academic year, with the presentation of more than 140 junior and senior sporting colours.

Guest of honour was former Eggar’s pupil Brad Taylor, who is currently a Hampshire county and England under-19 cricketer. Brad became the youngest player to appear for the Hampshire first XI since 1867, playing against Lancashire at the age of 16 – before he had even found out the results of his GCSE exams.

He generously donated a signed Hampshire shirt to the school and gave out the medals with headteacher Patrick Sullivan.

The team of the year award in particular was well contested by three strong teams, among them the gymnastics squad which had six students qualify for the national finals; the Year 9 rugby team who were county champions and went through to the Hampshire festival undefeated; and the under-15 girls cricket team, who were the winners.

They were county champions in the softball format of the game, the second best team across the Southern Counties, and county runners-up in the hardball format of the game.

There was also a video shown of this year’s powerful Rock Challenge performance which got a tremendous response from the very appreciative audience.