NIXON AND SHARPE IN BOYS SQUAD TO FACE SWEDEN
 British
Boys champion Matthew Nixon and triple winner Oscar Sharpe
have been named in a six-strong England boys team to face
Sweden Boys at The Buckinghamshire Golf Club on 10th April.
Nixon (pictured left - photo courtesy of Tom Ward), 17, from
Lancashire, joined an impressive list of former champions
such as Jose Maria Olazabal, David Howell and Ken Ferrie when
he took the title at Royal Aberdeen last August.
The other members of the team to face the Swedes are Tom
Berry and Gary King from Surrey, Jack Hiluta from Essex and
Northamptonshire’s Adam Myers.
Hiluta, King and Nixon are members of England’s under
18 squad while Berry, Myers and Sharpe are in the under 16
squad.
Hiluta, 17, made an impressive debut for England in last
year’s Boys Home Internationals at Moray in Scotland,
winning five of his six matches. This year he has played in
the Triangular Match against Canada and South Africa near
Pretoria and beat full cap David Horsey on his way to the
last 16 of the Spanish Amateur.
King, who made his debut in the annual under 16 international
with Scotland at Hartlepool last autumn, is among a crop of
talented youngsters to emerge from Surrey. A former Surrey
under 14 champion, earlier this year he finished runner-up
to county colleague Seve Benson in the Qatar Open Amateur
in Doha.
Prior to his British Boys triumph, Nixon finished second
in the North of England under 16 Championship in 2005 and
last year was runner-up in the Lancashire Championship and
the Lancashire Boys Championship.
Berry, 16, the Surrey under 14 champion in 2005, finished
runner-up in the Reid Trophy (England Under 14 Championship)
that year and played against the Swedes 12 months ago at Meon
Valley. He helped England win the Nations Cup in last year’s
McGregor Trophy at Worthing and represented Surrey in the
Boys County Finals at Pannal.
Myers, England under 16 champion in 2005, has been capped
at that level for the past two years and was also a member
of a winning Nations Cup team at Worthing,
Fourteen-year-old Sharpe from Gloucestershire made history
last year when he won the under 14, 15 and 16 titles following
his victories at Worthing and Gosforth. He also won the Douglas
Johns Trophy and the North of England Boys Championship and
represented England at under 16 level against Spain and Scotland.
The match with Sweden will consist of three morning foursomes
followed by six singles.
The full England team is: Tom Berry (Wentworth), Jack Hiluta
(Chelmsford), Gary King (Tyrrells Wood), Adam Myers (Northants
County), Matthew Nixon (Ashton-under-Lyne), and Oscar Sharpe
(Minchinhampton).
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