LANCASTER City swimmers are the water polo champions of Britain again - for the fourth time in six years.

The city men retained the title won last year by beating Rotherham 5-3 in a tense finale at Manchester Aquatic Centre.

And to add extra spice this time around, Lancaster's first under 16 girls team, captained by junior international starlet Alex Rutlidge, won the first ever ASA national competition for the age group.

The Lancaster men set up their title chance with a hard fought 8-7 semi-final win over Scottish champions Portobello on Saturday.

And after narrowly losing to Rotherham in the qualifying competition two weeks ago, they began the final as underdogs.

To their credit, they responded with true grit and determination, and thanks to an outstanding defensive performance from Neil Bowers and Chris Hartley, the Yorkshire side were unable to get a challenging shot on goal in the first half of the game.

It was not until the third quarter that Dave Bush was really called upon to defend his goal with an outstanding save when facing a Rotherham attacker one on one.

Having qualified for European competition, the players must now decide whether to enter or not. The swim club says that, in view of finances, much will depend on sponsorship.

Team: Dave Bush, Paul Howarth, Colin Burgess, Chris Hartley, Jamie McIlquham, Ryan Pinington, Tom Curwen, Ian Mounfield, Andrew Squires, Neil Bowers, Stephen Knowles, Dougie Campbell, Ryszard Detko.