WYTHALL schoolboy Alex Setchell rubbed shoulders with the best young table tennis players in the country when he took part in the recent English Schools Championships.

The event took place last Saturday at Aldersley Village in Wolverhampton which saw over 350 young players representing a total of 50 counties.

Alex was representing Worcestershire in the under-11 category having won their qualifying competition which were staged at Evesham in January.

Alex found himself competing against some players ranked more than 100 places higher than him.

He said: "I was proud to represent my county at my first schools tournament and test myself against the very best players in England. The games were very hard, but still good fun."

Competition took place at under-11, 13, 16 and 19 categories, with the under-11's winner proving to be top seed Jakub Piwowar from Devon.