Bedford Tchoukball Club was founded in the autumn of 2001 by ex Great Britain centre pivot Ben Lumley. Ben was attending college at De Montford University where he decided to start his own club. With the help of his girlfriend Kirsty, roommate Matt, and former Tchoukball player Alex Scott, the club was born.
In November 2001 I joined the club with a group of friends who had heard about it. Before then I had never heard of the sport, but was incredibly impressed when I saw it being played. The squad at this time consisted of around 8 and we were playing in a very small hall on the college site.
By the new year the squad had grown to about 12 and we looked for new accomodation. We found it downtown at a larger part of the college complex. It was here that the club began to form the foundations of a quality team and it showed when we were recognised by the T.A.G.B. and invited to our first tournament in Portsmouth. We played adult teams in a league of 8, coming 5th.
In May 2002 we moved to the impressive Bedford International Atheletics Stadium. With a squad of 15-20 players we took two full-strength teams to the Junior European Festival where we won our first trophy, coming 2nd in the tournament of 12 teams from across Europe.
In the summer of 2002 the World Championships were held in Loughborough. Some of our squad were selected to play for Great Britain at Under-16 level. The U-16 team came 3rd behind China P R and Switzerland.
Representing your country at international level after 1 year is an amazing achievement.
After financial problems we were forced to move to Goldington Middle School. This is our current home and we have held tournaments at it this year.
Our squad is now of about 25 and has a mixture of male and female players.
