"Hungary" for success - Journal 17th October 2002
SABRE fencers from Stratford, Alcester and Solihull will form a third of the cadet squad leaving for Hungary tomorrow.
They have been selected to compete in the Koracel Kupa in Hungary this weekend.
Top of the team are the Brenda brothers from Alcester, with schoolmate James Broad. All three attend Alcester Grammar School.
They are joined by three boys from King Edward VI School in Stratford, led by Tom Musgrave, another 16-year-old lower VI former, with 15-year-olds Aaron Fox, from Solihull, and Luke Foster.
The boys will compete in the tough international individual event and join up to contest the team trophy the following day.
All three have their national caps already so team medals are a serious possibility. Good results in the individual events will go towards their national rankings and British team selections for the World Youth Championships next April.
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Sabre title for Alcester - Journal 10th October 2002
SABRE fencing in Warwickshire showed off it's new star school, when Alcester Grammar School's sabre team won the prestigious Whitgift School Teams Challenge at the Oval on Sunday.
The Alcester team of Tom and Richard Brenda and James Broad, all 16, fought a thrilling final match against the King Edward VI School team comprising Robin Allen (17), Mike Stone, Tom Mus-grave and Hunu Choji, all 16.
At the halfway stage KES had pulled ahead at 25-20 after a brilliant performance by Musgrave against Richard Brenda, but the Alcester team dug in and clawed back.
Broad kept the team in touch and Tom Brenda gained points on Stone and Mus-grave. The last bout started with KES ahead by one point, when Richard Brenda moved up a gear to take a couple of well timed attacks through Allen's defence.
Eventually, Brenda sealed the championships at 45-43.
Other schools taking part included top independent schools like Westminster School, Brentwood School, Whitgift School, Lancing College, Malvern College, Kings College School Wimbledon, Queen Elizabeth Hospital School (Bristol), King Henry VIII (Coventry), Oratory, Josca's School and Summerfields School.
KES took the gold and silver in the main individual event, when Stone beat Choji 15-13 in the final. Choji had earlier taken out Whitgift's Gareth Kay 15-11 and Stone dispatched Lancing College's star, David Beckett 15-10 in the semi-finals.
In the younger age group, Aaron Fox (15) and Mike Turner and Luke Foster, both 14, made the quarter-finals. Alcester's Chris Brenda (13) was 24th.
The KES team of Mike Turner, Aaron Fox, Daniel Box and David Musgrave finished third only losing out to the winners from Brentwood.
The Under-13s had a disappointing individual event but won the team bronze thanks to the efforts of Robbie Mal-loy, Adam Douthwaite and Matthew Chivers.
Louise Creechan restored Stratford's reputation by winning the individual bronze.
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Sabreurs turn on style - Journal 12th September 2002
FENCERS trained in Stratford took three of the four top places in the Hamlet Men's Open Sabre Tournament held in King Edward VI School last weekend.
In a close and exciting contest Durham's Chris Buxton overcame locally trained Will Garrity into second place.
Buxton had earlier beaten Peter Kirby from North Littleton, trains at KES, into third place.
Both Garrity and Kirby represented Great Britain in the World Youth Championships in Turkey this summer. Old boy and KES trained Simon Whitbread from Stratford was the other bronze medallist.
The Hamlet Tournament was the first of the season's major open competitions and is a qualifying event for Great Britain selection. Eight of the top 20 ranked British fencers were in action last weekend among a strong field of 84 senior and junior sabreurs.
KES's retiring captain of fencing, Matthew Sorel-Cameron from Stratford came ninth. Robin Allen, this year's captain, was placed 14th. Allen was a member of the Great Britain cadet team, also competed in the World Youth Championships.
One family provided five entrants into the competition. Alcester- based Team Brenda - father Paul, and sons, David, Richard and Thomas and Christopher - achieved mixed results despite flashes of good swordsmanship.
Richard and David reached the last 32 with Thomas and Paul making the final 64. In a reversal of fortune since their last competition Paul finished ahead of Christopher; a triumph for age over youthful exuberance.
Paul was shown the yellow card for the second time in his short career of three competitions for some over-enthusiastic attempts to hit his opponents.
His sons were better behaved and Richard, who was seeded ninth going into the elimination stage, achieved the best team position of 18th.
Taunton's Charlotte Brown won the ladies competition for the third time. After comfortably working her way through her opponents she eventually beat Car Stevenson from the North East with little difficulty, in the final.
Top local fencer was Lauren Sewell, 14, from Coventry (King Henry VIII School), who is trained by Peter Rome, one of the Shakespeare's Swords coaching team, at Henry's and KES. She was 20th in a strong field of 53 fencers.
The youngest woman was 13-year-old Louise Creechan from Stratford (Girls' Grammar School), who was 46th.
The tournament was run by Shakespeare's Swords Club's supporters and parents, who received many tributes and votes of thanks for such a well-run event. In all, 137 fencers took part and the organisers' efficiency and enthusiasm meant there was a good show for the spectators who witnessed fine displays from world-class athletes and Commonwealth team members.
View pics from the Hamlet Open 2002
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Top fencers line up at KES event - Journal 5th September 2002
SEVERAL British champions will be among the top fencers entering the first major open sabre tournament of the 2002-03 season, which is being held at King Edward VI School on Saturday. The competition, called the "Hamlet Open Sabre", after the Shakespeare play, is for both men and women and many local fencers will be taking part. There are more than 100 entrants and several are on their way to the Commonwealth Championships being held in Australia in November.
The action starts at 10am with the preliminary rounds of the men's event, followed by the women at 11. There will be continuous fencing throughout the day, until the final matches around 4.30pm.
Local stars to watch include top British junior, Will Garrity (19) from Chipping Campden and four fencers from the Brenda family, father Paul and sons David, Tom and Richard from Alcester.
Stratford's Robin Allen, fresh from his British debut at the World Youth Cham-pionships, will compete against teammate Peter Kirby from Evesham. Both are now Upper Sixth formers at KES and Chipping Campden Schools respectively. Allen has also taken over as captain of fencing at the Stratford school.
Mike Rayner, from Denbighshire, who trained at KES, before moving away is contesting the title on Saturday. He is starting his run up to the Commonwealth Champio-nships, where he will be fighting for Wales.
Chipping Campden's Stratford-trained Commonwealth star, Louise Bond-Williams, who won two gold medals in the sabre in the last Commonwealth Championships, will not be competing this time. She is training for the Olympic Games having just returned from the World Championships where she made the quarter-finals.
Doors open for spectators at 9.30 am at the Levi Fox Hall, Chapel Lane. Spectators wanting to see the competition and support the local fencers will be made welcome. There will be refreshments available and all proceeds will go towards training the young talented fencers in the area.
Come and meet a Commonwealth Gold medallist - there will be three at the venue in addition to Australia's top woman sabreur and fencers from South Africa, Hungary and others from Australia.
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NEW CAPTAIN OF FENCING
Robin Allen has been appointed the new Captain of Fencing at King Edward
VI School for the 2002-2003 season. Robin started fencing when he
arrived at KES in September, 1996. After doing the usual beginners' course
he took to the sport and quickly showed talent and had considerable success,
despite his small size at the time. Robin had found a sport where stature
was not that important! Robin began his international fencing in Anecy and Monéteau in France, where he competed at u13 and u15 levels. From there he went on to fence in the British cadet squad in Germany and Italy in some of the toughest competitions in the world. His training and competitions have taken him to many countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Turkey and the Czech Republic.
His success brought him steadily up the rankings at both cadet (u17) and Junior (u20) levels. He was selected for the England Youth team two years ago, and represented his country in the junior home international against the other home nations later that season. He was also picked up to fence in the World Cup series as part of the British junior squad, and became one of the few youngsters to be allowed to wear the coveted "GBR" symbol on his back. Last Easter, Robin achieved the highest accolade available to a youth fencer when he was selected to fence for Great Britain in the youth world championships in Antalya, Turkey.
Currently ranked in the top 150 under 20 fencers in the world and was 56th in the world championships last year, he now trains as a member of the GB junior squad.
As the school and Shakespeare's Swords captain, Robin is the first point of contact for the young fencers. He organises many of the events that happen in our busy schedule, especially the in-school events like house matches.
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Every year fencers at KES have the option of going to summer training camps, which usually happen around the UK. These are there for you to have a week of intensive training to improve your fencing before most of the competitions of the year. This year Shakespeare's Swords, KES's fencing club, organised a trip to join a training camp in Debrecen, Hungary's second city.
We flew from Heathrow to Budapest and then took a train from the city centre to Debrecen where we went to the hostel that we were staying in. All of our meals were at a small restaurant ten minutes walk from the hostel, the food there was traditional Hungarian food and was very nice throughout the time.
The Venue that we did the training in was fifteen minutes walk from the restaurant, it was large, modern and well equipped for fencing. Most days we would have a warm up followed by some exercises and footwork followed by lessons and free fencing. It was hard work but rewarding and we were very tired at the end of the days, particularly on the days where we had a run in the morning.
The sabre pupils were taught by László Szepesi who is probably the world's top sabre coach, and is the coach who took France from nothing to winning Olympic medals, his methods were different but rewarding and you could feel yourself improving during his lessons. When not coaching he spent his time playing practical jokes on members of the groups. We were also trained by Ákos Patocs, who is an excellent coach and perfectionist. Many good fencers came to the course including the number sixteen in the world, two other members of the Hungarian team, a member of the Canadian over sixties team and a member of the British team.
The other fencers had Akos and István Lukovich who is probably the top coach in the world for Epee and foil, he trained both Patocs and Szepesi and is another perfectionist. On the second last day we had a match in all three weapons between the Hungarians and the British, the British won by five points. It was an experience to fence some good Hungarians.
In the town there was a lot to do including watching English films. There was also a carnival, so there were concerts and other activities in the centre of the city. On the last day the actual carnival procession took place and, as it went past the hotel, we were able to watch it from our windows.
We returned home after and an extremely interesting, fun and tiring week and I certainly hope that I will have the opportunity to go back next year.
Article written by Mike Turner
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DEBRECEN TRAINING CAMP 2002
