Darlington's table tennis youngsters followed their national team successes when they reached all four junior team finals and lifted the Junior Girls title with a superb performance in the World Youth championships in Hungary.

Held in the national sports town of Tiszaujvaros, Darlington's junior squad proved they can hold their own on the world stage with a string of superb team and individual performances.

Representing England, the boys went down to India and Russia, but the girls so nearly produced a major shock.

The Under-14 side lost to Italy, but not before Stephanie Donnelly had taken the major scalp of Italian No 2 Mariangela Altomare.

However, the Under-17 girls almost produced a major shock. As other team matches finished all eyes centred on the dramatic match against Romania.

Claire Wilson had lost the opening match 9-11 in the fifth set to Kirsztina Hurdakas and the English side went 0-2 down when Joanne Meads suffered a similar fate against Cristian Terzl. However, the atmosphere became more tense when the Romanian team coach was sensationally given a red card and banished to the grandstand seating area.Stephanie Donnelly responded by beating Ana Maria Morcan and Claire Wilson defeated Terzl to level the match at 2-2. A potential huge shock victory was snatched away from the Darlington girls when Hurdakas inched home in the final singles against Joanne Meads.

The team performances set the stage for individual singles and Andrew Leighton became international class with a string of high class victories. The world event had been preceded by the World Cadet Challenge where teams were made up of the best from each Continent. In the opening group stage Leighton demolished European ranked number ten Kristian Nagy (Hungary) in straight sets, then again in three straight sets against Emanuel Sifor (Rom). India's number two boy followed before Leighton stretched China's Wang Hongsheng to four sets.

However, the Darlington 14-year-old had done enough to qualify for the main draw and once again another Continental international was brushed aside as South Africa's Theo Cogill was brushed aside, once again in straight sets.

A place in the world's top 16 looked possible but Yugoslavia's European ranked number four Zolt Pete eventually won 11-9 in a thrilling five-set match. There were other notable victories for the Darlington Juniors. David Meads eventually fell to bronze medallist Ovidu Ionescu (Rom) in the Under-12 boys singles after three round wins. In the same event Mark Simpson and Marc de Wind progressed to the same stage before losing to Aleksandras Rusinovas (Lithuania) and Dmytro Pysar (Ukraine), the latter the eventual world champion.

Samantha McCormick, Stuart Osborne and Adam Hassan also recorded wins in their first ever international tournament. The trip to the World championships would never have been possible without the huge fundraising efforts of club officials and parents and the support of sponsors CSI