Swindon Skater Hockey Club was well represented at this year’s U19 European Championship held at Stegersbach in Austria.

The club had three members selected for the Great Britain U19 team with team captain Will Harding, netminder Jake Silvester and D-man Haydn Lee all selected as members of the GB squad.

In their first group game they took lead against Switzerland and were close to going two up before a number of penalties saw the Swiss take full advantage to win the game 12-2.

Against eventual tournament winners Germany they were always second best to a well-drilled side and went down 13-1.

In their third group game against hosts Austria the GB team really came good and romped to a 10-0 victory to finish the day on a high as Silvester secured a shut-out and Will Harding got on the scoresheet with 1 goal and two assists.

In their semi-final against Switzerland, Great Britain really excelled themselves. The Swiss took an early lead but GB came back strongly to level twice with Lee hitting the second before two further goals extended the GB lead to 4-2.

However, the Swiss pulled a late goal back just before the end of the first period.

It was a disastrous second period for the GB boys as the Swiss rattled up five goals to which they could only respond with one to make it 8-5.

GB responded well in the third period and had the Swiss hanging on at the end as they were forced to try and disrupt and delay the game but GB could only manage one goal to finish 8-6.

The third/fourth place game saw GB meet Austria again but Austria pulled off a 2-1 win with a goal in each period.