KES fencers hot in Cole! - Journal, Thursday 28 June 2001
KING Edward VI School's fencing team entered the Cole Cup international team sabre competition in Newcastle and beat Northern Ireland's B team 45-27.
What was even more remarkable was that an under-15 squad was also successful.
Teams from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, The Netherlands and Northern Ireland took part. The individual event, held the previous day was the culmination of the Coupe du Nord (Northern Cup) Series, a satellite of the main World Cup.
The KES main team, meanwhile, had been battling against the might of a composite Australia/New Zealand team, holding them to a narrow 45-42 defeat after leading 20-18 at halfway.
KES's next outing next month will be to the British Team Championships, where they will face the hardest challenge of the year, a little nearer home at RAF Cosford.
Overall, KES took ninth, tenth and 11th places. As each place is fought out, there were some epic battles and both some very exciting and nail-biting moments.
The KES team comprised Pip Nicolson, Hugh Jackson, Robin Allen and David Brenda, Mike Stone, Tom Musgrave and Humu and Aaron Fox.
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Allen finds the right key - Journal, Thursday 31 May 2001
UP and coming fencer Robin Allen scooped the prizes at the Bristol Sabre Fencing competition held in Glastonbury over the Bank Holiday weekend.
The 16-year-old won both the under-17 section and the overall competition to come away with a range of prizes.
Robin, who is a pupil at King Edward VI School and a member of the Stratford Fencing Club, had won all his preliminary fights to start in first place in the elimination rounds.
He easily beat off all his opponents until he met Peter Kirby, 16, from Chipping Campden School and Shakespeare's Swords in Stratford, in the semi-finals. Kirby has impressive European and world experience having fenced in two successive World Youth Championships. Not surprisingly Kirby steadily pulled ahead of Robin to lead by 14 points to 9. Needing only one more point to win. However, in scoring his 14 points he had shown Robin his basic moves and he was then able to counter each one to relentlessly even the score in front of a large and very appreciative audience.
The final point went convincingly to Robin who went on to beat Chris Markall, from Bath, in an uneventful final.
Thomas Brenda, aged 14 from Alcester High School and another member of the Stratford Fencing Club, won the under-15 section of the competition and was placed fifth overall. Other senior members of the club, Richard Brenda and Michael Rogers, finished in ninth and tenth places, while several of the junior members put in good performances which promise well for the future.
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Sabre title for Thomas - Journal, Thursday 10 May 2001
THOMAS Brenda, aged 14, from Alcester High School, won the Tameside Leon Paul Under-15 Sabre Fencing League competition held in Manchester last weekend.
Brenda demonstrated superb control of the timing of his attacks - which is sometimes a problem for him - and this, combined with his natural advantage as a left-hander, gave him an edge which the other competitors could not overcome.
He took the lead in the first round and held it for four hours until he won his final fight against Michael Rogers from Kineton High School, who also trains at the Stratford Club.
This is the third competition in this year's league series. Thomas's twin brother, Richard, has won the other two competitions but could only manage third place in Manchester.
James Broad, aged 14, and also from Alcester High and the Stratford Club, showed the rapid improvement he has made in his first year of sabre fencing by his convincing 15-4 win over Aaron Fox of King Edward VI School, Stratford. This placed Broad in the last eight.
Marshall Rake, from the USA and currently training at KES, also reached the last eight. In a low entry under-17 competition, Michael Stone, aged 16 from KES, secured second place.
While the junior members of the Stratford Club were in Manchester, one of its more senior members was taking part in her first competition in Bath.
Vicky Garrity, from Chipping Campden, is the mother of the current national under-20 sabre champion, Will, who has recently returned from his success in the World Championships in Poland.
She has previously only fenced for fun at the Shottery club but, having agreed to be reserve for the Gloucester Ladies epee team - and having had only one lesson with the epee - she found herself in a team of three in a two-day competition against 11 other county teams.
She contested a total of 33 fights over the weekend and, to the delight of her team and club, Vicky managed to win points in all of them, including one against the Welsh epee champion.
"I've only ever used the sabre before," she said. "And so I had to remember to stab instead of just hitting. I also had to remember that my husband, who is my usual target, was just a spectator this time!"
Her team finished in third place.
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Local contingent fly out for world championships - Journal, Thursday 5 April 2001
THE British team for the World Youth Fencing Championships leaves for Gdansk, Poland, home of the Solidarity Movement, from Gatwick Airport tomorrow.
Six sabre fencers from the region are in the team this year, two fencing for Ireland and four for Great Britain.
The British contingent comprises Louise Bond Williams, 18, from Ebrington, Peter Kirby, 16, from North Littleton, Evesham, Will Garrity, 17, from Chipping Campden and Mike Rayner, 16, from Moreton-in-Marsh.
Kirby is attending his second World Championships, after an excellent result last year when he came 46th, while taking the record for the youngest ever men's sabre fencer to compete in the worlds for Great Britain.
Bond-Williams is an old hand at this level, having represented her country at every level since the inception of the discipline in November 1998.
Kirby and Bond-Williams both train in Stratford-on-Avon in the centre of excellence run by King Edward VI School in the new Levi Fox Hall.
The school was unlucky not to be represented in the team, when Matthew Sorel-Cameron, 16, from Stratford, was pipped at the post for the last place by Rayner, who also started with Shake-speare's Swords in the school.
Rayner and Garrity now train in London.
The British team members are joined this year by two others who train at KES in Stratford.
Brothers Nick, 16 and Kit, 14, Vanston-Rumney, from Wyken in Coventry. The boys go to King Henry VIII School, but their parents and family are Dubliners and so the Stratford centre has ended up as the Irish national centre as well.
The youngsters have all been in hard training over the past few months, in addition to having to do their full quota of school and university work.
To qualify for the worlds they had to compete in many international events abroad, as far away as Cuba.
Their travel time eats into their work and they have to be really organised to make up for it all and still have time to live.
"It's quite hard," says Peter Kirby, "But it's well worth it."
"I've made friends all over the world," added Bond-Williams, after a training session with international Nicole Mustilli from the USA.
Will they bring back the medals? Who knows? It's tough at the top and fencing is one of the most complex sports.
They are well prepared, well motivated but lack the funding that goes with real world level success, as Steve Redgrave pointed out as he won his fifth gold medal at the Olympics.
Britain has four fencers ranked in the top ten in the world. One is Bond-Williams, who was World Cup 2001 runner up. They'll try for the moon!
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Sabre's sweet success - Journal, Thursday 22 March 2001
ONCE again the national dominance of Stratford-Upon-Avon as a sabre centre of excellence was demonstrated at a home international competition for Under-18 and Under-16s held last weekend.
Forty-four teams representing England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland competed in eleven separate competitions at Tidworth in Hampshire. England won eight of the competitions and were overall victors in both age groups.
Four of the six members of the men's sabre teams were from the Stratford area. Peter Kirby from Chipping Campden School and Pip Nicolson, Matthew Sorel-Cameron and David Brenda all pupils at King Edward VI School in Stratford-Upon-Avon. All have trained under David Kirby at KES.
England's sabre fencers suffered only one defeat and that was against a Welsh team led by Michael Raynor who trains in London and Stratford.
Thirteen sabre fencers from the Stratford area, including four from the KES club, will be competing in an international competition in Monateau, France next weekend - the last of the international series before the Junior World Championships in Poland in the summer.
Great Britain has six sabre fencers who have qualified for the World Championships and three of those train in Stratford. Another Stratford- based fencer will be representing Northern Ireland.
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Brenda misses out on top spot - Journal, Thursday 1 March 2001
THOMAS Brenda (14), a pupil at Alcester High School, came second in the Warwickshire Sabre Championships last weekend.
Thomas, from the Stratford Club, fenced well in the preliminary rounds and started the direct elimination rounds in fifth place.
In the quarter-finals he met Simon Rogers, his regular coach at Stratford, when many points were decided on technical merit. He triumphed 15-14.
The same score saw him through the semi-finals to meet another of his coaches - Peter Rome -in the final.
Thomas was initially able to neutralise Peter's extraordinarily long reach by a series of fast attacks at close quarters. However, Peter's greater experience allowed him successfully to counter attack and to steadily pull ahead until he was 14-7 ahead.
Thomas then switched from attacks with the blade to attacks with the point of the sword to make it 14-11, but at this point Peter made a powerful attempt to finish the contest with a single blow. Thomas counter-attacked with equal force and Peter's blade broke in two.
Once Peter had been re-equipped, he won the contest, leaving his victim in a prestigious second place.
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