WITHINS High School cemented their place as the country's top school for wrestling when they successfully defended their British Schools Championships title.

Separate teams of boys and girls totalling 25 wrestlers clinched the senior titles ahead of teams from as far afield as London, Wrexham and the North East.

Withins won the title in Birmingham last year when the boys and girls were combined in one joint team and St Joseph's at Horwich took the national championship 12 months earlier, proving Bolton to be the top town in the country for schools wrestling.

Withins won the girls competition without two of their best wrestlers, one of whom, Ashley Jackson was representing Britain in Austria.

She is the fourth wrestler from the school to represent her country, following Tom Darby, Robert Neild and Andrew Pendlebury while David Sweeney is currently training with the British squad and is being tipped for a call-up.

Withins added wrestling to its list of sports three years ago when it was introduced by school sports co-ordinator Barry Leese and it has quickly established itself as the school to beat.

Many of its wrestlers compete for Aspull Wrestling Club, whose coaches Roy Wood, Andrea Wood and Derek Rowland take training at the school, and their next event is for Aspull in Belgium.