On what was another warm (and unseasonably high temperature for the time of year) Tuesday evening, at the end of September, the fencers of Gravesham gathered for the monthly club competition. The scorer was hoping for an easy evening, with small poules over more pistes and the hope that all of the initial round fights would be completed in one evening. However, with an initial fourteen fencers attending, it was not to be and two pistes of seven fencers were put through their paces, before an additional two fencers arrived later on, adding to the melee! Unusually, Sandy was a very up and down on the evening, winning three of this seven bouts but also losing three. Tadek was more consistent within the poule winning all but one of his fights and Henry matched him on the scorecard, fight for fight and hit for hit, both for and against. Josh was close behind winning five of his seven bouts but scoring in the two losing bouts, putting him in good contention for a high seeding for the DE (Direct Elimination).Peter described his poule as the ‘poule of death’, but despite his misgivings he did very well, winning five of his seven fights, despite injury and, although behind Paul on number of matches won (Paul won six of his seven) and tied with Rohan, Peter took the second place seeding in this group by way of his indicator score (hits scored versus hits against). Ben also fought well, winning four of his six matches, but absence on the second week saw him not complete his final bout and thus drop down the DE seedings. Richard won three of the six fights that he participated in, and Mark also claimed three wins, whilst Phil just declared that he was ‘having a shocker and might as well go home’ – you can’t win them all Phil! With some of the poule matches fought on the Friday and then completed the following Tuesday, the seedings were calculated. Paul took the top slot over Tadek, merely by means of the indicator. Henry, Peter, Josh and Rohan were all next and tied for matches won, but separated by their indicator scores. Ben and Tom were next, followed by another four grouping of Dave, Sandy, Mark and Richard who were ultimately seeded by way of their indicator scores too. The two ‘otters’, Steve and Phil, were the bottom two to have at least won a match, before Ellora and, newcomer Lloyd were the poules wooden spoons and again, only separated by their indicator scores.With the seedings and DE matches finalised, we were hoping to get the final result before the night was finished. Paul, with a long fencing history, made quick work of, new fencer, Lloyd in the first round DE match to five hits. Dave and Tom were much closer at 5 v 4 to Tom, as was Steve’s and Peter’s match, which fell Peter’s way. Rohan and Mark were close behind with a 5 v 3 victory to Rohan, whereas Tadek had clearly taken inspiration from Paul and beat Ellora 5 v 0. Josh and Phil had byes through to the quarter-final due to the non-attendance of Richard and Henry and, Tadek, having beaten Ellora, found himself with a bye to the semi-final, due to Ben and Sandy not being able to make the evening. In the quarter-finals, Paul was seemingly on an invincible roll and beat Tom 5v 1, Josh was equally impressive against Peter, also winning by the same scoreline and Rohan was taking heed too, beating Phil by an impressive 5 v 2 hits. However, Paul’s run was coming to a crushing end, with in form Josh, beating him 10 v 4 in the quarter-final, whereas Tadek versus Rohan was a much closer affair with Rohan just pulling away in the last few hits to make his way to the final, against Josh, with a 10 v 8 win over Tadek.The final itself was a very close affair, with Dave refereeing and being amazed at the number of double hits that Josh and Rohan managed to land. However, it was the longer-term member of the club, Rohan, who managed to pull away at the finale and beat Josh, who is normally a sabre fencer,15 v 12. It was a fine scoreline for Josh, who wasn’t fighting his preferred weapon, but, overall, it was a fine win for Rohan, who for once was not the ‘bridesmaid’. Well done, Rohan, a well-deserved win that has been long overdue.

• For about the first time in 2026, since spring started, we managed to hold a monthly competition in, what is considered, ‘normal average’ weather conditions for the time of year. On the evening, we managed to get fourteen fencers in attendance, which made for another, rather large, poule unique.The rules for the competition were that the fencer to get three hits first was confirmed as the champion. However, as always, Mark never likes to keep it that simple! If you received the first hit, you were bound by keeping a foot on the line, unable to move back and forth along the piste. If the foot moved, then you were penalised with a hit against you, again. If you gained a hit, whilst stationary, then your opponent was forced to stay on the line and you, once again, had free reign on movement. In the event of a double hit whilst one fencer was incapacitated, all things would remain the same as before the hit. There was no passivity, meaning that the fencer with free reign had to push forward and fight and, for those who had received a hit, it was all about sword positioning and parrying. With the numbers involved, it was near impossible to complete all of the matches on the evening, so we carried over to the Friday and following Tuesday sessions. However, the final scores were done on those who had completed all fights and/or had been able to attend all sessions. The fights of those who hadn’t managed to attend the follow-up sessions (Steve, Nate and Sofia) were removed from the final points tally up. Peter and Sandy came very close to claiming the trophy, however, with Peter’s win over Sofia and, Sandy’s wins over Nate and Steve not counting, due to those opponents not being present for the follow-up sessions, Peter managed to claim second place and Sandy joint third with Ryan. Tadek had a slow evening, only managing four wins, with Kevin, Mark and Phil all behind him at three wins apiece. Dave looked to have a shocking evening, with only one win, until you take into account that he beat both Steve and Sofia (whose scores did not count towards the final) and his only counted win was a fine 3-2 victory against Sandy. Maybe Dave was still in holiday mode? That only leaves us to crown Henry as the August 2026 champion, with eight out of nine wins on the final tally, with Peter being his nemesis this month, although, it should also be noted that on the first Tuesday he suffered a 3-0 to Nate too (unfortunately, Nate’s score didn’t count in the final tally due to not being able to attend the follow up sessions).
• Well done Henry – again!Hopefully, with the weather not taking a turn to being somewhat ‘normal’, we’ll be able to run some competitions to the end of the year, that allow for a longer format.Well done everyone, there were some great matches, great hits and great banter yet again and we’ll see you all for the next competition at the end of September.Well done, Henry!

A huge congratulations to Josh who placed in the bronze medal position, in the mixed/men’s Sabre event at the Norfolk open in July. There were a good number of competitors for this event and, considering the current heatwave, this was particularly impressive to sustain the stamina to reach the medal podium! Well done, Josh, now to get you some club kit, so you can showcase who we are on your next outing to the medal podium! Keep up the good work!

• On yet another very hot Tuesday evening (and what was to be the start of the fourth heatwave for this year), we had nine fencers attend for the last Tuesday of July and, the monthly club competition. Claudia was in attendance as the referee for the night and Jenni was there as the scorekeeper.The nine attendees were grouped into teams of three, for a fast and furious team competition. Each team would compete against the other two teams, with the hope of finding an overall winner. Each fencer would fight to three hits, with doubles being taken into account and each team member had three lives, so, if you had a hit against you, you would lose a life and, if you had three hits against you, you couldn’t participate in that match any longer. The team to have a member still standing with a life, at the end of each round of bouts would be the winners. Initially Team A (Peter, Mark and Tadek) took on Team B (Josh, Steve and Paul). Peter and Josh had a close match, with Peter just finding the edge and knocking out Josh, but with only one life remaining. Mark didn’t fair as well against Steve and Tadek was disappointed in only gaining one hit against Paul. Peter had it all to do for the team, but with only one life to participate with, it was always going to be an uphill struggle against Steve (and his three remaining lives) and eventually, Steve did get the hit that saw Team B being crowned winners in this round. Next up, we had the Team B winners remaining on piste and taking on Team C (Tom, Ryan and Phil). This time round Josh was successful against Tom, but only came out of the bout with two lives remaining. Steve couldn’t beat the left-handed Ryan and Paul and Phil dumped each other out of the running with a three-all scoreline! It was left to Josh, with his two lives, to take on Ryan, with his three lives. In what we thought would be a close match proved unfounded as Josh also struggled to contain the wily moves of the left-handed Ryan, who took the match two to nil and thus crowned Team C the champions. In the final pairings, we saw Team A take on Team C and, we were hoping that this would provide us with an overall winner. However, in eerily similar circumstances to the first two rounds, we saw one team down to one surviving member, after all three team members had fought and, it was on this round that the winners were crowned. Peter led Team A to a three v one victory over Tom and this optimism clearly played out among the rest of his compatriots. Mark took on, the previously undefeated, Ryan and won with the narrowest of three v two victories and, finally Tadek made a good showing against a newly energised Phil, but just missed out on making three for three, losing to Phil by three hits to two. The final showdown was then father versus son, with Phil taking on Peter, but Peter had the upper hand with an extra life intact. Phil started well, managing to get the first hit and take Peter down to one life remaining, but, in the one-hit showdown, it was Peter who triumphed and took Phil’s last remaining life with the next hit. This crowned Team the winners.So overall, each of the team’s won one of their rounds and, after much discussion and, given the heat, it was decided that it would be declared a three-way tie (although, Team A are still relishing in an unfound glory of Champions due to having the most hits scored!). Well done to everybody who attended and fingers crossed that the remaining competitions for the year are in somewhat cooler conditions! Enjoy the holidays and we’ll see you all again for the September competition.