After an amazing 12-week fund-raising project, Darlington's 12-strong Under-14 squad took their place in the World Youth Festival in Tiszaujvros, Hungary.

As the officially nominated squad by the English Association, the Darlington youngsters were thrown in at the deep end in the opening team events.

Darlington club coach Keith Wilson said: "Those in the town who supported the trip of a lifetime, whether individuals or business, can be justifiably proud of the way they played.

"They were a credit to the town and the sport. What we witnessed in Hungary was a group of young players all maturing to international status.

"With hard work in the coming season, there could be much more success coming their way."

The boys equipped themselves well against seeded Croatia and Hungary and only went down 3-2 to former Russian state Tatartstan with ten-year-old David Meads gaining the first of a number of superb individual victories for Darlington. The girls team had an even tougher task, taking on third seeded Greece and again performed well against the highly rated European trio.

In the individual events, David Meads built on his team performance to finish with five from 11, Andrew Leighton raised his game superbly to claim three from 11 with all bar one of the squad inflicting defeats on their nationally selected opponents. There were also many great performances in defeat. Andrew Leighton led eventual U-14 Boys bronze medalist Kostas Moutsakis (Greece) 19-18, before losing narrowly and ten-year-old Mark Simpson led by a set and 18-16 before losing 21-18 in the decider to Atilla Vadja (Hungary) who went on to claim a silver medal in the U-12 Boys singles.

The Darlington youngsters all raised their game to compete well against the best and the experience could well show in this weekend's opening Junior Open tournament in Selby.