On Friday 15th November 2019, over 200 guests arrived at Milsoms Kesgrave Hall to celebrate Suffolk's sporting success over the last year and what an evening it was...

Preparation for the Suffolk Sports Awards have been underway for several months, where the Active Suffolk team have been working hard to collate nominations, engage the public in the voting process and lay on a prestigious event for some of the counties top sporting heroes.

As ever, it was an extremely tough competition with a huge number of extremely deserving candidates being nominated for selected awards, including: Unsung Hero, Sports personality of the Year, Young Sports Personality of the Year, Club of the Year, Team of the Year, the Elena Baltacha Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Secondary School of the Year, the Primary Schools Sports and PE Premium Impact Award and Coach of the Year.

In the lead up to the event, the 8 awards which went to public vote received over 10,000 votes via the Active Suffolk website, whilst the judging panel made their final decisions in the background.

The top three from each category were formally invited to the award ceremony where the winner was announced and presented their award. In addition to the award ceremony, this years guests also enjoyed live interviews from the shortlisted candidates in the Sports Personality of the Year category, Hetty Bartlet Team GB Olympic Gold medalist at this years Special World Games in Abu Dhabi and Andrea Thompsons, Worlds Strongest Woman. Graeme Mack from BBC Radio Suffolk also conducted a special interview with last years Sports Personality of the Year award winner, Jasmin Taylor who spoke of her success since achieving this award.

A huge congratulations must go to all of this years winners, which are as follows:

Coach of the Year
Ben Poole from Lowestoft Boxing Academy

Primary School PE and Sport Impact Award
Red Oak Primary School

Team of the Year
Bealings Primary School, Futsal Team

Lifetime Achievement Award
John Rednall, International and National Bowler

Young Sports Personality of the Year
Ruby Hunt, Karate

Secondary School of the Year
Thomas Gainsborough School

Unsung Hero
Terry Back, Ipswich JAFFA Running Club

Club of the Year
Ipswich Sports Club

Elena Baltacha Award
Stephen Williams, St Edmunds Pacers

Sports Personality of the Year
Andrea Thompson

All photos courtesy of Keith Mindham can be found HERE

Thank you to all of this years sponsors: BBC Radio Suffolk, Everyone Active, Ipswich Borough Council, East Suffolk Council, Active Waveney and Sentinel Leisure, Places Leisure, CIMSPA, Suffolk PE and Sport Network, Abbeycroft Leisure and Harrod Sport.