Revived Whitchurch Swimming Club Celebrates Successful Year

A little over a year after reforming, Whitchurch Wasps Swimming Club has gone from having no pool to call home to sending swimmers into county-level competition.

The club was forced to close when Whitchurch Swimming Pool shut during the pandemic, leaving the town without a competitive swimming base for years. The opening of a new pool allowed Wasps to reform in late 2025, drawing in new swimmers, coaches and volunteers determined to bring competitive swimming back to Whitchurch. None of that rebuilding happens without people prepared to give their time freely, and it's exactly that effort, from committee members through to coaches and volunteers, that's carried the club from non-existent to these superb results in under a year.

Many swimmers have moved from purely recreational swimming into competitive club racing, representing Wasps at Diddy League competitions and other galas to build experience. That work paid off at the Shropshire Club Championships in June, where several newcomers to competitive swimming won medals. The club will host its first Club Championships since reforming on September 19 and 20, in collaboration with other local clubs, giving swimmers another opportunity to hit the qualifying times needed for the Shropshire County Championships.

With the Shropshire Amateur Swimming Association recently publishing qualifying times for the County Championships in January and February 2027, several Wasps swimmers have already secured their spots, a genuinely impressive achievement given many have been training and competing for less than a year since the club reformed.

Growth hasn't come without its own challenges. When the new pool opened, it didn't include diving blocks, meaning Wasps swimmers currently can't practise competitive race starts at their home venue and must travel elsewhere in Shropshire to do so. The club is now fundraising to buy its own diving blocks, hoping local support will help finish the job of giving these swimmers a genuinely complete home to train and compete from.

The club will mark its first year back with a Presentation Evening at the end of November, celebrating the swimmers, coaches and volunteers who've built Wasps back up from nothing. Anyone wishing to support the fundraising campaign, or make a donation toward the new diving blocks, can contact info@whitchurchwasps.co.uk.