BADMINTON pair Charlotte Graham and Amy Ward ended the season with more silverware.

The duo won their fifth gold medals as a partnership during a prolific campaign, at Badminton England’s U17 Silver Circuit meeting at the Tyneside Badminton Centre in Newcastle, on Saturday.

It was another impressive showing from Hexham’s Charlotte, and her Northumberland teammate Amy.

They started brightly in their round robin match against the tournament’s number two seeded pair, Walker and Phillips of Yorkshire, but lost narrowly.

But they responded with two big wins, one against the Northumberland pair of Davison and Dodd (15-12, 19-21, 18-16), and against Dearing and Crabb of Yorkshire (15-12, 15-11), to qualify for the final round.

This led to an encounter with the unbeaten number one seeds, Swan and Meldrum, of Glasgow.

The local pair began at a furious pace, and stormed into a 9-0 lead. And they held steady, upsetting the form guide with a convincing 15-8, 15-13 victory, their most impressive win of the season.

A delighted Charlotte said the pair were confident in their ability and remained positive throughout the tournament.

She added: “We didn’t start the final group with a win, but I still felt we were playing well enough to get silver, or even gold.

“We knew the Scottish girls were good and were undefeated but we still felt confident.

“We had worked hard with our coaches this week and we just decided to increase the pace and take the game to them.

“You can gain momentum during a match and we just went for it from the start. Amy was brilliant today and has been all season.

“We keep a shared positive attitude during our matches and I think that works really well.”

Last month, Charlotte and Amy won gold at the U17 Badminton England Bronze Circuit doubles tournament in York, and in January, the pair were silver medallists at an event at Thornaby.

Since last September, Charlotte has picked up a total of 27 medals across the age groups from U15 to U19.

The Hexham teenager has also recently starred for Northumberland U16 in two recent victories against Yorkshire and Cumbria.

Charlotte will play for Northumberland U18s away to Cumbria on Saturday.