A very welcome, sunny February day greeted us for our 2024 North West Areas and what a great Eagley day we had! Up before 6am, all assembled in full uniform at the bandroom by 7.15am, gently warming up for fifteen minutes with our MD Chris before loading up and getting onto our luxury coach to head off for Blackpool before 8am with the draw taking place at 9am. Cold and very early starts are all part of the annual banding experience for North West Areas bands but the sunshine was very welcome.

With a huge 17 bands in our section (Second Section playing ‘Triptych’ by Philip Sparke) it was a draw split into two halves and we knew well in advance that we would be playing in the first half of the draw of contest. We drew to play 6th out of the opening 9 bands and when we took to the Opera House stage at 11.25am on the exact same stage we played the previous year before the Championship Section takes place immediately after ours, we played superbly. The band gave everything and remembered everything we had rehearsed so thoroughly. Chris was delighted with our performance and everyone came off stage knowing they had played their best and we had collectively played the best we could, especially given the draw, the time of day and all the variables which affect every performance. The very appreciative audience certainly liked what we had done. The results were now out of our hands of course but, as Chris reminded everyone, every single player without exception played in the Eagley Areas performance the previous February, 2023; not a single player was new and literally all 27 players in our 2024 Areas performance played in 2023. We would believe this to be unique in any band at any level in any Area contest except for the fact that we had already done exactly the same already with Eagley in the 2019 and 2020 Blackpool Areas (just before the pandemic lockdowns only weeks afterwards in late March 2020). If any band has ever achieved this once we would be very surprised, but to play identical bands without a single change twice in 5 years? This says everything about our Eagley family.

After our excellent performance, players went off for some lunch, met numerous old banding friends, enjoyed coffees and cakes or went back into the hall to listen to lots of other bands playing the same piece as we had done. At 2.45pm we all gathered in the Opera House for results. 17 bands and  we all believed that we must surely feature in the top 6 announced places. Sure enough, as the results were announced, we had come 4th of 17,  just outside the trophies and prize money and just outside the three qualification places for the September Cheltenham National Finals in which we appeared as recently as 2021, but a great result nonetheless.

All of us involved in the Eagley 2024 Areas experience will remember the day, the weekend and the weeks leading up to our 4th place very fondly, it has been a further extension of a brilliant 2023 with all its amazing concert highlights and BBC Children In Need surprise before Christmas and promises to carry on throughout the rest of 2024 hopefully.