How The Times Have Changed

Here at Dartes we like to keep a close eye on progress. That's equally true whether we're talking about performances at Yorkshires; the quantity qualifying for Nationals; how many Dartes records go tumbling; or simply how many athletes we have from each of our feeder clubs. Knowing the numbers helps us to spot weaknesses early and helps to show when a new initiative has made a difference.

As the number of swimmers through the door has a direct relationship to future success (both at the Dartes level, and the feeder club level) we thought a few of you would be interested in seeing the distribution. Obviously, individual clubs don't really know how they compare to other clubs in terms of numbers at Dartes, so officials at those clubs may well find this interesting too.

Adding any kind of analysis to tables such as this always generates controversy, so we'll try and stick to the obvious conclusions. If a club wants to compete well in the Barnsley Minor League or the DMASA Mets they're strongly encouraged to develop a solid core of Dartes training swimmers spread across the age groups. That approach proved a massive bonus to the Spa Askern team that won the PTL Division 1 for three straight years (up to 2008). It's no coincidence that the top 3 clubs on our table above also finished 1-2-3 in last year's Mets Championships.

Similarly, if a club has big ambitions towards The Mets then Dartes training swimmers from other clubs must be beaten on the way to winning medals and earning valuable team points. That's not to belittle the solid training being done by athletes back at our feeder clubs, but there is a world of difference between training 4 or 5 hours per week and 14+ hours per week. That difference tends to be rather noticable when pitched head-to-head in local meets. Back in 2008 we published a somewhat infamous article congratulating Spa on winning Top Club at the Mets - many of you will remember it. At the time they were the dominant club at Dartes (see table below). In October 2010 Adwick probably broke numerous records on their way to winning Top Club at the same meet - compare those tables and work out who the dominant club is today!

Coincidence?

We're not, in any way shape or form, trying to steal the local club's thunder or take away from the excellent work overseen by their Head Coaches. Indeed, promoting such pathways is strong evidence of a successful and confident club. We're trying to highlight this area of good practice and show how it benefits everyone concerned: club, athlete, and training scheme alike.

The challenge for all Coaches is to keep that high volume of young swimmers feeding through. Not everyone in County will be awarded a spot in Regional, just like relatively few in Regional are selected for National, but we strongly believe in giving as many as possible the chance to prove themselves. So keep on passing them through, and let's see what happens.

A good target for all our clubs to achieve in 2025/2026 would be double figure representation in County and Regional. These squads cater for swimmers aged 8-15 and is massively biased towards developing skills and learning how to train. We don't thrash our athletes up and down a black line despite the tales many have heard from days gone by. All our squads have a strong skills based focus, but County even more so. We strongly recommend entry at 7 for optimum progression though. Remember, we understand how to coach 8 year olds. We have no intention of making them World Champions at the age of 9, we have every intention of nurturing them through to being elite senior aged athletes 10 years down the line.

As a point of reference, below is a similar table from February 2009 showing the dominance of Askern SPA at the time and how the times change.