Badminton Eastland super vets heading to Feilding for one-day comp

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

After a year of changes, the Badminton Eastland super veterans team will travel to Feilding for a revamped one-day inter-association competition.

The team had entered the North Island super veterans' competition that was due to start on May 16.

When that did not go ahead, the team entered a new competition, the first weekend of which was to be in Gisborne on August 16. This, too, was suspended after the move back to Covid Alert Level 2, so a new draw was produced, this time for Feilding on Saturday.

Taking part in the competition are super vets' teams from Oroua, Hawke's Bay and Hutt Valley. On last year's results Hawke's Bay were above Eastland, who were placed above Oroua. Hutt Valley are new to this competition.

Eastland team members are Helen Morley from the Gisborne Badminton Club; Ron Prebble, Bruce Ledger, Linda White, Annabelle Riwaka and Ruth Ledger, all from the Patutahi Badminton Club; and Manawatu loan players Matheus Batlajeri, who has regularly played for Eastland, and Richard Skarott.

Unavailable from last year's team were Kevin Lee, of the Gisborne club, Sheree Gray, of the Patutahi club, and Kevin Taylor.

Helen Morley returns to the team after not playing representative badminton in 2019.

The team hope for positive results, but Covid restrictions placed on training have been a problem.

Fitness levels aren't as good as had been hoped, and players are reminded that the super vets' competitions in the Bay of Plenty and Auckland areas have been suspended for the year.