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Jun
The young diving coach training Harrogate’s next generation
Harrogate District Diving Club has endured some tough times in recent years.
For many years the club was a thriving centre for excellence, which helped to produce Ripon's Olympic gold medallist Jack Laugher and Irish Olympian Oliver Dingley.
During covid, though, it struggled. Membership dwindled and the major refurbishment of Harrogate Hydro between April 2022 and September 2023 meant the club temporarily lost its home.
At one point divers had to travel to Shipley to train and only six members remained.
Fast forward to today, however, and the club is thriving again.
It has 63 members – 42 that compete and 21 that are training to do so.
The club also provides informal diving lessons at the leisure centre to around 130 people. These people are not members of the club, but take part on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Its progress was highlighted when it was named national diving club of the year in November by Swim England.
Head coach
Behind any good sports club are good coaching staff. The Stray Ferret recently spoke to Harrogate's head coach Albany Thompson.
The 24-year-old works with assistant head coach Grace Wilkinson, and level two coaches Isabella Bonson and Evie Jalland.
Thompson joined the club as head coach in May 2022, at only 21 years old. She told us how she got there:
I’ve been involved in diving since I was seven. I used to go to the John Charles centre in Leeds, where I’m from. At the time, a lot of the Olympic divers like Matty Lee were there too. I used to look at them doing cool flicks and tricks and think ‘that’s awesome, I want to learn’.
I dived for 10 years then started coaching exclusively. I’m more of a leader and like the idea of helping people to learn new skills.
When we met Thompson, she was coaching the main squad of competitive divers.
The main squad all regularly compete in regional and national competitions across the UK. They range from 10 to 16 years old.
Competing at such young ages is not uncommon. Diving sensation Tom Daley brought increased attention to the sport in 2008, when he took to the Olympic stage at just 14 years old.
The coach said that it’s best to start as young as possible:
Kids that can swim by age five or six are brilliant because they have no fear. You can ask them if they want to jump off the five-metre board and they’ll just do it. Jack [Laugher] started really young.
I think the bonds between coaches and divers have a big impact on performance. It’s important that the divers feel confident saying when they’re not comfortable doing a dive. We try to encourage that.
Olympic Gold Medallist Jack Laugher visited the Harrogate District Diving Club earlier this year.
To find young diving talent, the club hosts annual talent identification and development scouting programs.
The coaches visit schools across the district, holding small activity sessions for those in years two to four.
If children show potential, they are invited to taster sessions at the Hydro. If they enjoy it, then they are moved onto the talent identification and development squad and start training to become competitive divers.
As a result of this, the club now has almost 200 divers in competitive and non-competitive settings.
The Hydro, which was rebranded as the Harrogate Leisure and Wellbeing Hub in 2023 but remains widely known by its old name, boasts North Yorkshire Council's only diving boards. Because of this, people come from far and wide.
The head coach said that seeing such growth has been the proudest part of her time at the club.
Diving has seen an immense growth in popularity since Tom Daley’s first appearance in Beijing. Thompson said this had been a massive change from when she grew up, when “you didn’t really hear or see about diving on TV”.
As the sport continues to grow, the district’s only club appears well placed to produce more of the country’s elite divers.
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