Dunedin's Onyx Militaires 16-and-under marching team won at the recent New Zealand Marching Championships in Hamilton for the first time in more than a decade, and team coach Shona French was delighted.
"The sport has declined in popularity in recent years - it's no different from any other sports.
"But we're working hard to recruit members and keep marching going.
"It's a battle just to create a team, let alone win a New Zealand championship."
Ms French said she and her daughter, co-coach Michelle French, had worked hard to recruit and train the girls.
Ideally, there should be 10 in the team, but only nine places could be filled, she said.
Despite the deficit, Charmaine Simonsen (15), Hannah Blagdon (15), Catherine Lewis (16), Nikita Palmer (17), Paige Gilder (14), Jasmine Simonsen (13), Therese Vince (13), Sarah Martin (15) and Nikita Macpherson (16) competed against 10 other teams from throughout the country, and won.
"We're absolutely ecstatic. I've been doing this a long, long time - this is the pinnacle of my coaching career," Ms French said.
The team will give one more performance, at the New Zealand Leisure Marching Display Day, at Forsyth Barr Stadium later this month, before the season ends.
With many of the girls too old to compete in the under-16 event next year, the battle will resume to field a full team.
"We will keep some of them, but we'll need to find a few more legs to fill the spaces."
Next year, team members will get to defend their title on home turf when the national championships are held at the stadium from March 15-17.
The Onyx Militaires Under-12 team was runner-up in the Display March Plate category at the championships, and the Clutha Ngatahi 16-and-under team was runner-up in the Technical Marching Plate category.
