Triumphs for Tom and Tim as KES club haul in the medals - Journal, Thursday 13 December 2001
LOCAL fencers were out in force at the England Youth Championships at Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire last weekend.
Top honours went to Tom Brenda (15) from Alcester (Alcester High School), who became the first national Under-16 boys' sabre champion for 2001-02 and Tim Perry (16) from Coventry (Blue Coat School), who won the Under-18 épée.
Brenda had to fence his brother, Richard, also 15, in the semi-final. The two evenly matched boys answered each other right to the wire and levelled the score at the final point 14-14. Tom made his move with a confident temp attack to win the bout.
Elder brother, David, made the day a family affair with a quarter-final medal at Under-18 level.
This was the first youth championships held for England. In all, the regional centre at Stratford, based at King Edward VI School, took two gold medals, one silver and two bronze.
One of the champions was épéeist, Tim Perry, who is now training at the expanding centre.
His final fight with Alex Brentnall, 17, from Canterbury, was tit-for-tat all the way up to 13-13 of the 15 hits they needed.
Perry's training and support from the experienced squad started to pay off when he kept focused and relaxed to make the last vital hits, where his older opponent tensed and missed at the critical moment.
KES had it's own success, with Robin Allen (16) and 17-year-old Pip Nicolson taking the silver and bronze medals and winning with them their coveted places in the England team for the junior Home International in March next year.
KES trained fencers have now won four of the six sabre places and an épée slot in the England boys' team. Brothers Tom and Richard Brenda were the sabreurs and Tim Perry the England épée team member.
Younger fencers were also in action. Luke Foster, David Mus-grave and Tom Most all won fights in their rounds.
Other KES boys, Aaron Fox (14), from Solihull, and 15-year-old Tom Musgrave made the cut to the elimination getting through to the last 16 stage of the championships.
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Brothers in British bid - Journal, Thursday 29 November 2001
SABRE fencing brothers, Tom and Richard Brenda, from Alcester were part of the British Under 20 team for the junior World Cup series fencing in Frascati, near Rome last weekend.
Their selection stemmed from outstanding performances this season since September, when they have both climbed the national rankings and are challenging older boys for places in both the world cup series squad and the team for the World Championships in April.
The boys join elder brother, David, who was picked for the squad last year and continues to fence for the British group.
Tom and Richard join two others from the fencing training centre in KES, Peter Kirby and Matthew Sorel-Cameron, both of whom are vying for the coveted three places in the junior British team for April.
This is the boys' first qualifying competition.
The four Stratford based boys made up half the eight-strong British team this week and Richard was the highest finisher in 61st place after gaining two wins.
Brother Tom failed to register a win and finished further down the pecking order.
All require a last 32 place in a world cup event to qualify for the British team this year. So far only Louise Bond-Williams, Chrystall Nicoll and Jenny Hutchison have made this grade.
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Medals of all colours as Sabre squad shows off its talents - Journal,Thursday 29 November 2001
Sabre fencing in Stratford showed off it's new generation last weekend with gold, silver and bronze medals in the Leon Paul Junior Series final event in Bath.
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Juniors reap regional wins - Journal, Thursday 22 November 2001
KES took top honours at the West Midlands Youth Sabre Championships in both the under-18 and under-14 categories.
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Sweet smell of success in Cologne - Journal, Thursday 08 November 2001
KES trained sabre fencer, Peter Kirby from North Littleton won a finals place in the cadet (under 17) international tournament in Cologne.
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Teenager Kirby takes a top title - Journal, Thursday November 1, 2001
Peter Kirby, a member of the acclaimed KES club became the equal youngest ever British Junior Sabre champion at the National Championships in Bristol last weekend.
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Mike Rogers (15) from Little Kineton (Kineton HS) won the under-15 event after a tough fight with Andrew Prevett on his home turf.
The silver medal went to 11-year-old Toby Crane from Stratford (KES), who had defeated some excellent south west opposition to reach the final, but couldn't match the experience of Taunton's Charlie Winn.
Luke Foster (14) from Pillerton Hersey (KES), achieved one of the best results with an outstanding effort in self-control to make the semi-final in his first year in the upper, and much stronger under-15 age group. Simon Whitworth (14) from Leamington (KES), produced another personal best to make the quarter-finals in the same event.
The under-15 series has been of such high standard recently that it has had a higher severity grading than several open events in the same season.
The girls continued the lead set by Louise Bond-Williams, by taking a silver and bronze medal.
Lauren Sewell (13) from Coventry (King Henry VIII) beat off Elizabeth Bouchard from the south west to meet the huge and athletic Robynne Stenner from Bath in the final.
In the event, Sewell couldn't find the answer to Stenner's powerful and accurate attacks and had to settle for a well deserved silver medal. However, this was enough to win her the national series title for t 2001.
Louise Creechan (12) from Stratford (Grammar School for Girls) was dispatched by Stenner in the semi-finals. Creechan had fenced with sudden understanding and control, and thoroughly deserved her bronze medal place. She also won the series bronze medal position over the year.
David Musgrave (13) from Clifford Chambers (KES) will not be satisfied with his quarter-final place, but it was nevertheless a fine result.
Mike Read (12) from Coventry (King Henry VIII), joined 13-year-old Mike Turner from Stratford (KES) in the last 16. Both had good pool rounds, but found the shorter ten-hit elimination fights too restrictive for their tactics.
Nathan Holdbrook and Matthew Chivers (both 11) made the quarter-finals and last 16 respectively.
In the national series results, the Stratford fencing community had a total of 15 youngsters in the top eight of the three age groups, making over 40 per cent of the total for the boys.
Top ranked fencers were Toby Crane (5), Nathan Holdbrook and James Frew (=8), David Musgrave (6), Richard Brenda (1), Tom Brenda (2), Mike Rogers (3), Luke Foster (5), Aaron Fox (7), Lauren Sewell (1), Louise Creechan (3), Sophie Pitblado (4) and Clara Ross (2).
Robin Allen (16) from Stratford defeated Nick Vanston-Rumney from Coventry in a final dominated from the start by Allen.
At the younger end, Mike Turner (13) from Snitterfield saw off 12-year-old clubmate Robbie Malloy from Stratford, in a tough semi-final, finally beating him by the narrow margin 15-13.
Turner then faced David Musgrave, also 13, from Clifford Chambers and the two battled evenly for the winning hit. In the end Turner got a couple of hits ahead and managed to hold on until the finish to secure his victory.
KES-trained fencers also won both the under-16 boys' and girls' events, when Tom Brenda took on his brother, Richard, both 15 from Alcester in the final bout of their championships.
Richard was fresh from his quarter-final success in the foil event earlier in the day and fellow Alcester HS pupil Thomas had the advantage of a longer rest and the result was reversed.
Kit Vanston-Rumney, from Coventry and Mike Rogers from Kineton, both 15, were the semi-finalists.
Earlier in the day, 16-year-old Peter Kirby from North Littleton had taken on the best foil exponents in the region and trounced them all to make the final against nationally ranked Rupert Haines.
Kirby kept up the pressure throughout showing his superior fitness and footwork, as well as a clear head for tactical thinking. All he lacked was the ability to place his point as accurately with his foil as he can with his sabre.
Another Shakespeare's Swords member, Clara Ross (14) took the girls' under-16 championships by storm without losing a single fight.
KES's new recruits were out in force, with several Year 7 boys in their first competition.
Patrick Navein did particularly well in the elimination, taking Nathan Holdbrook to the last point in their last 16 bout. Max Crane (12) overcame Harry Bercis (11) at the same stage but was then dispatched by eventual winner, Mike Turner.
Chris Cox (12) had beaten Max's brother, Toby (11) before being knocked out by King Henry's Mike Read, another KES trained sabreur.
Matthew Chivers (11) fell to the greater experience of Adam Douthwaite (12) until he met silver medallist David Musgrave in the quarter-finals.
In total, Stratford's King Edward VI School picked up two gold medals, a silver and two bronzes. They had nine boys in the quarter-finals, while the KES club, Shakespeare's Swords, took 11 of the 12 available medals.
Winning a dramatic fight, the 16-year-old pupil of Chipping Campden School beat off all his British rivals to win his finals place in this tough world class event.
In his last 12 bout, Kirby, the recently crowned British Junior Sabre champion, he trailed Kai Stahlecker from Eislingen 14-10, but managed to pick himself and the score up to 14-all.
With everything resting on the last hit, he drew his opponent, and caught him with a cracking parry and riposte, but got his body wire cut in the process, allowing Stahlecker to claim a foul hit.
Kirby had to change his cable to face the German again for the final hit when he took the fight directly to Stahlecker, forcing a timing error to win the point and his first international prize.
Kirby was the leading fencer in the British cadet squad alongside Shakespeare's Swords teammates, Robin Allen (16) from Stratford (KES) and Tom Brenda (15) from Alcester.
Allen finished the gruelling competition in 12th place, with Alcester High School pupil Brenda 19th out of the 107 entrants from Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Hungary, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Denmark, and Great Britain.
Winning the national title with another three years to go in the age has only ever been achieved once before by David Sach from Brentwood School in 1994.
Kirby, a pupil of Chipping Campden School, scooped the under-20 title from his rival Daniel Morgan-Blake, also 16, from Croydon in a final worthy of any senior competition in Britain.
Kirby dominated the bout from the start quickly taking the first two hits, before Morgan-Blake took advantage of an unforced error to bring the score to 2-2.
Kirby switched from drawing his opponent onto his varied defence to straight attack and moved his score ahead again. Morgan-Blake levelled again at 6-6, took point for point until he scored with two of his trademark long, swinging attacks to take the points to 9-8 in his favour.
Kirby dug down and lured Morgan-Blake with two superbly timed and executed second intention parry-ripostes to regain the lead. After that, his greater control proved too much for the young Londoner and he never again got into the fight, and Kirby took the prestigious title 15-12.
The score was the same margin that Morgan-Blake had overcome Kirby, from the KES club in Stratford, in the British Cadet (under-17) Championships the day before.
Then Kirby, from Littleton, had again dominated the early part of the fight, but let Morgan-Blake back in.
He seized his chance and kept control of the bout, and Kirby was behind all the way to the end and had to settle for silver.
The two gladiators are both great rivals and close friends. They have travelled the world together as team-mates in the British Junior Squad and spent weeks at training camps in Poland and the Czech Republic in each other's company. It was a fitting moment to see them facing each other in successive national title finals and for the honours to be evenly split.
Morgan-Blake had knocked out title holder, Chipping Campden's Will Garrity (18) on the final hit of an exciting semi-final match.
Garrity's long reach was matched by the speed and agility of the young fencer and neither teenager really dominated for any length of time. The score had got to 14-14 before Morgan-Blake took his final point.
Another KES boy, Robin Allen (16) from Stratford was the third placed fencer in the British Cadet championships.
He overcame Harry Moncrieff from Scotland, by the narrow margin of 15-14 in the quarter-finals. Again this was a demonstration of close emotional control by a young Stratford fencer, coupled with serious technique and tactical awareness, which proved too much for the young Scot.
A battling Allen then sent packing 15-12 by Morgan-Blake in a tough Under-17 semi-final bout.
