Fareham group’s cheer leading to Florida

FLORIDA beckons for a Fareham cheerleading group of eleven 10 to 14-year-olds after they were crowned grand champions at the end of a two-day competition in the Midlands.

The Junior Emeralds team are trained at Locks Heath-based Dance & Cheer-a-cality – D-C-A – and were taking part in the Cheer City ‘Summer Showdown’ at Loughborough University.

They competed in various categories and amassed the highest score to be declared grand champions with the prize of a discount to enter the Allstar world championships in Orlando, Florida, in a year’s time.

However, the founder of D-C-A Lara Hallam told The Globe “At the moment we’re still waiting to hear about the competition regulations so that we know how many we can take.”

And, even though they won a discount, “we have to find funding for flights, accommodation and food, and we want them to have an experience such as a day at Disney World. It will cost about £2,500 per athlete.”

Not that the talents of D-C-A are limited to its Junior Emeralds – it has teams for minis aged 5 to 8, youth aged 8 to 10 and seniors over 18, and they came back from Loughborough with seven 1st places, three 3rd places and one 4th place.

Lara said: “Officially cheerleading became a sport about two years ago. However, we run 30 classes in dance and cheerleading which are a mixture of recreational classes and competition classes because not everyone wants to compete.”

The various teams and their coaches also perform at community and school fetes as well as going into schools to do workshops and working with young people who have learning difficulties.

Photograph (top): Grand Champions, the Junior Emeralds. Lara Hallam, reproduced with permission.