Final point the clincher - Journal, Wednesday 21 February 2001
RICHARD Brenda, aged 14, from Alcester High School, won the second Under-15 league competition of the season held in Bristol last weekend.
Richard trains at the Stratford Fencing Club and is the current national champion at this age level and has already won the first of this season's league matches.
He won all his fights in the preliminary rounds and easily defeated his first opponents in the elimination rounds with scores of 15-1, 15-3 and 15-4. His only difficulty came in the finals when he met Kit Rumney.
Rumney had earlier beaten off strong challenges from Marshall Rake, a strong American fencer currently staying in Stratford, and from Richard's twin brother, Thomas. Rake finished seventh and Brenda third.
Richard trailed one or two points in the final until a combination of nimble footwork and deceptive attacks enabled him to draw level at 14-14.
For the final point, Richard moved as if to strike at his opponent's body but instead stabbed at his arm to score and win the contest.
Michael Rogers, also from the Stratford club and a pupil at Kineton High School, showed consistently improved form and finished in fifth place. James Broad (Alcester HS) was 15th.
In the Under-17 event, Chris Horner (Warwick School) impressively won all his fights to reach the final before being beaten by Benedict Murphy from Bristol. Michael Stone from KES finished in fifth position.
In other recent competitions both Richard Brenda and Michael Rogers made the last 16 in the Slough Open and several other Stratford Club members performed creditably in European matches.
In Pisa, Michael Rayner finished 21st in an international Under-17 event, while in Logrono, Spain, in an Under-20 World Cup qualifying competition, Robin Allen, aged 15, from KES, Stratford, finished 39th and William Garrity, aged 17, from Chipping Campden made the last 32 to finish 28th.
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England call on KES boys - Journal, Thursday 01 February 2001
MATTHEW Sorel-Cameron, aged 16, from Evesham Road, Stratford, and Pip Nicolson, 16, from Pebworth (both KES) have been selected to fence in the England under 18 sabre team in the four nation Home International in March.
They were selected because of their results in the British Under-17 and Under-20 Championships in Croydon, where they all made the final tableau and medal positions.
These excellent results were enough to convince the selectors that they should take three of the six places in the England team.
KES is keeping up its reputation as one of the country's top sporting schools by providing half of the England youth team this year.
The quadrangular team championships take place each year in March, when England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales fight out for the championships.
Every country takes a turn at hosting the event. This year it is due to be held in Tidworth, Hants over the weekend of Match 10-11.
Last year Northern Ireland hosted the teams at Queens University, Belfast, where England won the title.
David Brenda, aged 15, from Alcester has been selected to fence in the England under 16 sabre team at the same event.
He reached the semi-finals at Under-17 level at Croydon.
David is currently ranked as one of the top five schoolboy fencers in Britain, and he hopes to gain a British tracksuit for the youth world championships either this year or next.
All three are pupils at King Edward VI School, in Stratford and train at the West Midlands sabre centre of excellence, which also works from the school.
Currently Sorel-Cameron is ranked as one of the top schoolboy fencers in Britain, and he hopes to gain a British tracksuit for the youth world championships either this year in Gdansk, Poland in April.
There he will be joined by Peter Kirby, 15, from Chipping Campden School, who also trains at the KES fencing centre.
Kirby, a pupil at Chipping Campden School, has been chosen for the England under 16 team and was selected because of his performance in the British Under-17 Championships, where he made the quarter-finals. On top of this he also took sixth place at the Junior Championships.
These two excellent results were enough to convince the selectors that he should take the top place and captain the England Under-16 team.
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Robin lands a home win - Journal, Thursday 18 January 2001
STRATFORD Fencing Club was well to the fore in the first league competition of the new season, held in the Levi Fox Hall at King Edward VI School in Stratford last weekend.
The Under 17 competition was won in fine style by Robin Allen, aged 15 from the Stratford Club and a pupil at KES.
Also fencing on home ground were fellow club members David Brenda (15) who finished third, Michael Stone (15) who was sixth and Chris Horner, also 15, from Warwick School, in joint third.
The Under-15 event saw Richard Brenda (14) from Alcester High School cutting his way through the opposition to win every single fight, and the competition, in a very convincing style.
On his way to first place he knocked twin brother Thomas into third position. Michael Rogers (14), a pupil at Kineton High School, was fifth and a steadily improving James Broad (14), from Alcester High, was eighth..
The latter, who has been fencing for less than a year, survived a bruising encounter with the very determined and vastly more experienced Humu Choji from KES. Their long fight produced the loudest spectator response of the day.
The Club's youngest members, Grant Stuart and Christopher Brenda, both 12, made their way through the early rounds and the first eliminations to finish in the last 16 of the Under-13 event.
Grant finished in 13th position and Christopher, appearing with all three of his brothers for the first time, was 16th.
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Silver medal for Cotswolds fencer - Journal, Monday 15 January 2001
LOUISE Bond-Williams won a silver medal in the junior women's sabre fencing world cup tournament in Budapest.
Both the West Midlands fencers made the cut to the elimination as Liz Jones, 18 from Shottery (Grammar School for Girls) joined the Cotswolds girl in the 128 tableau.
Ebrington's Bond-Williams, ranked sixth in the world, returned to form after a disappointing start to the world cup series in Italy before Christmas.
The 18-year-old Birmingham University student has recovered from a serious bout of tendonitis and an infection to enable her to get back to training.
"Seeing the Union Flag running up the pole with Louise standing on the podium is a wonderful experience," said her coach, David Kirby, who took the team to Hungary.
"Clearly she could take the gold, but we need some national training resources as we proved in the Olympics. Put in the resources and the results come - with some willing hard work from the athletes."
Jones fought a good pool with two victories and one fight lost on the final hit. This gave her enough to make the cut.
In the elimination, she was genuinely unlucky to be drawn against Knaizkina (Russia) who went on to make the quarter-finals. Knaizkina had made several costly slips in her pool, giving her a low enough seeding to meet Jones, when she should have been much higher.
Jones did well to take five points off this top grade, Russian junior team fencer.
Bond-Williams conceded only eight hits in the entire pool, four of them in the one fight she blew against the unfancied German Groe. She made up for this by straight victories to the final.
In the second round (last 64) she beat Wator (Poland) 15-7, in the third round Melnik (Russia),15-11, and in the fourth, Zeiss (Germany) 15-13.
In the quarter-finals she took out Kniazkina (Russian), 15-10, to revenge Jones's earlier defeat. In the gala, she beat Nagy (Hungary) (semi-final) 15-9 in front of her home crowd with wonderful British support from the rest of the girls team.
Bond-Williams then faced current Junior world champion Annelise Touya.
The French girl prevailed 15-10 giving Bond-Williams the silver and the British team their first medal this year.
Both girls train in Stratford at the Centre of Excellence in King Edward VI School. They are competing in the world cup tournament in Göppingen, Germany this weekend.
KES had two of its own pupils fencing in the British team for the men's junior world cup tournament.
Matthew Sorel-Cameron, 16, from Stratford and David Brenda, 15, from Alcester, are among the eight young Britons returning home on Sunday, who also train at King Edward VI school, where Matthew is in the sixth form and David is doing his GCSEs this year.
Another KES sixth former, Pip Nicolson, 16, from Pebworth, was also selected, but couldn't go.
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Club lands a league double - Journal, Thursday 30 November 2000
STRATFORD Fencing Club took two first places in this year's Leon Paul League.
Chris Horner, aged 16 from Warwick School, won the Under 17 league and Michael Stone, aged 14 from KES, won the Under 15 league.
Will Garrity, of Chipping Campden, was fourth in the Under 17s and Richard Brenda, aged 14 from Alcester High School was fourth in the Under 15 category ahead of a pack of fellow club members.
In the final league competition of the season, at Loughborough this weekend, Chris Horner easily beat Philip Shepherd-Foster from Malvern College in the Under 17 final.
Chris won all his preliminary rounds and was the clear favourite for the competition.
Michael Stone had a more difficult time. After the early rounds he knocked out fellow club members James Broad (14 from Alcester HS) and Michael Rogers (14 from Kineton HS), but was then outpaced in the final by Christopher Markall and finished in second place.
In a long fight between Alcester twins Thomas and Richard Brenda, both 14 and from Alcester High, the latter was always trailing his brother until he managed to level the score at 14 all.
He then won the next point and the match to finish in third..
Thomas finished fifth behind Michael Rogers in joint third. James Broad was eighth in a competition dominated by the Stratford Club.
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David catches bad case of medal fever - Journal, Friday 20 October 2000
British Junior Sabre Championships
David Brenda, aged 15, from Alcester (KES) made top billing in the strong Stratford team with a third place and bronze medal in the British Cadet (u-17) championships held at Whitgift School, Croydon.
David was one of five local boys who made the quarter-finals of this national tournament, which attracted competitors from Inverness to Canterbury.
Pip Nicolson, 16, from Pebworth (KES) was fifth, sixth was Robin Allen, 15, from Stratford, (KES), seventh was Peter Kirby, 15, from North Littleton, Evesham, (Chipping Campden) and eighth was Matthew Sorel-Cameron, 16 from Stratford (KES). All the boys train at the King Edward VI School centre of excellence, one of the country's top youth fencing venues and Brenda, Allen and Kirby still have another year at this level.
KES stamped its authority on the sporting world again when they won the inter-school leagues at both the cadet and junior championships.
State grammar school KES accumulated a massive 136 points to beat Brentwood, Whitgift, St Paul's, Millfield and Bryanston - all of them top sporting independent schools.
In the junior event the KES boys also beat the Army team. King Edward VI is keeping up tradition. In 1997 the school team, fencing in an international event in London beat the Swiss national (senior) team 45-35.
It looks like they will be doing that again in the near future. The school holds four of the top eight national cadet ranking places.
In the junior championships, there were outstanding performances from Peter Kirby and Ben Townend, aged 14 from Broadway, who made the quarter-finals. Kirby, at only 15, is the fifth ranked under 20 fencer in Britain. He and the other top cadets from KES are making their bids to win coveted places at the world youth championships in Poland this Easter.
In the girls junior event the indomitable Louise Bond-Williams recorded her third successive victory. Louise has the distinction of being the only person to have won the British junior sabre championships.
She has won it every year since its inception. Her final fight was an anti-climax and she beat 17-year-old Jessica Lacheta from London very smoothly by 15-7.
Much the tougher contest was her semi-final bout against fellow world ranked girl, Chrystall Nicoll, 14, from Blandford (Millfield School).
Nicoll has served notice again that she is the heir apparent to B-W's crown. Liz Jones, coming back into form, made the quarter-finals with a steady, consistent performance.
The girls' team will fly off to Turkey at the end of the month to compete in the European Championships.
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