City of Salford go back-to-back after successfully defending Redwood Trophy

City of Salford successfully defended the Redwood Trophy after fighting off their competition with a Rocky and Creed inspired routine at the GoCardless Swim England Artistic Swimming National Championships 2025.

After winning the accolade for the first time in 2024, the North West club made it back-to-back titles this year courtesy of a clean sweep in the team events.

The Redwood Trophy is awarded to the club with the highest routine scores from the Technical and Free Team routines – and City of Salford not only topped the podium in both events but also clinched gold in the Acrobatic Team event for good measure.

The club followed up their Free Team score of 168.3013 with a total of 183.7633 for their Tech Team routine on day two of the championships to wrap up the trophy.

On how proud the club are to retain the trophy, City of Salford coach Jess Fletcher said: “I think I said this last year, words can’t describe it, but they genuinely can’t.

“We wanted to defend it and that was our goal to the point where our Free Team on day one – the music was defending the title – it was music from Rocky and Creed.

“It was just basically go out there and fight for it. We knew that clubs would be super, super strong and we knew we had targets on our backs but we just wanted to go and give clean swims and to go and get Acro, then Free and then Tech, all base mark free – there’s just no words.”

Earlier in the day, European champion and Rushmoor swimmer Ranjuo Tomblin was amongst the medals in the Free Solo and Free Mixed Duet.

He claimed gold in both events, teaming up with his Great Britain duet partner Holly Hughes (City of Bristol) in the latter event as the pair represented their respective clubs.

Tomblin’s performance in the Free Solo also saw him become the first male swimmer to be awarded the Helen Elkington Trophy on the same day that the GB duet of Eve Young (Rugby SC) and Robyn Swatman (Walsall ASC) earned the Spencer Trophy with an impressive total of 222.6463 in the Free Duet.

There was more success for the North West when it came to trophies, with Natasha Howard becoming the first City of Preston swimmer to be presented with the Holland Trophy.

See the full roll of honour for day two of the GoCardless Swim England Artistic Swimming National Championships 2025 below.