Team Winners L-R: Henry, Steve, Torran, Will, Tadek

On the final Tuesday of March, 2026, a whopping nineteen fencers arrived at Cygnets for the March Monthly Club Competition and, the final fencing session before the Easter break.  Mr Nash put the fencers into teams for a bash and dash competition that would be started and completed on the same night.  The dream team of Mark and Peter were split, possibly leading to their downfall, as a Team, on this occasion; Paul didn’t do too badly considering his return from yet another jet setting jaunt; Phil had a shocking evening and Richard fared quite well, managing to score some hits and remain standing despite his recent health issues!  Even Coach will got in on the act, probably hoping that he’d win one of the coveted extra prizes of Waitrose flavoured hot cross buns along with the trophy!

In the beginning, Teams A and B fought each other, whilst Teams C and D also took each other on, for a place in the final.  The rules were that each fencer had three lives, and, once you lost each of those lives you were out.  The team to have each member lose all of it’s lives first was out first, with the other team being declared winners. 

Team B (who only had four members, so Rohan had to fence twice) consisting of Rohan, Tom, Peter and Sandy beat Team A, Mark, Ellora, Richard, Sofia and Paul convincingly, with only Paul being the member to take any lives from his first fight.  In the other heat round, Team C, which incorporated Josh, Ryan, Jaina, Phil and Nate were also at a loss as to how to overcome Team D, Tadek, Steve, Torran, Will and Henry, with only Ryan from Team B managing to carry over any lives from his first bout, but then succumbing to Tadek with his one and only remaining life. 

The finals were more equally fought.  Each fencer started the finals with their whole three lives intact again and, in this round more fencers were able to fence more than one time, thanks to retaining lives in their first final bout.  However, in the end, it was Team D, consisting of Henry, Steve, Torran, Will and Tadek who triumphed, with Team B; Rohan, Sandy, Tom and Peter coming in as runners-up.  Team C; Josh, Nate, Ryan, Jaina and Phil were in third place and the wooden spoon holders were Team A; Richard, Sofia, Ellora, Mark and Paul.

It was a good, fun night, with some good hits and plenty of laughter all round.  The winning team were pictured with their trophy and, of course, being near Easter, their additional prizes of a packet of hot cross buns (various flavour combinations) – don’t say that we never spoil you!  Well done to everyone, particularly our winners and, to each and all of our members and their families have a wonderful Easter. 

Ryan, Steve, Sofia, Sandy and Phil

On the weekend of 14^th and 15^th March several Gravesham fencers made their way down to the Polo Farm Sports Club in Canterbury for the Invicta open.  The amount of fencers competing was numerous and our guys, and gals, did well to get through the day.  Sofia finished a very creditable 36^th in the women’s epee event and, we are pleased to report that we had four of our senior men competing in the men’s epee.  Sandy took the club top spot with a 65^th place finish, Ryan (and yes, we finally have a picture of you!), took 71^st place and our club captain and vice-captain fought it out with Phil (Gravesham Vice-Captain) just pipping Steve (Gravesham Club Captain) in 81^st and 82^nd places.  However, the consensus of the fencers, on the day, was that our Club Captain, Steve, had the bout of the day and for anyone wishing to see it, please ask Peter H for the video!

In the Plate competition (a secondary competition for those who get knocked out in the first round of the DE), Ryan finished a very worthy seventh, with former club member, James Fleming-Fido taking second spot.

Josh (no photo, as yet!) also competed in his favoured event, Sabre and ended his day with a very creditable 34^th place, out of 40, having only returned to fencing recently, post university. 

This author’s understanding of the day is that everyone gave a good account of themselves in a very tough competition.  However, the curse of the 15 v 13 DE loss hit three of Gravesham’s fencers, including Josh, who had a brilliant Sabre DE. 

Well done to all those who competed, especially Josh and Sofia, who returned from their university digs to compete for Gravesham. 

A huge thanks to everyone in attendance for their brilliant club spirit and supporting each other and, also to Coach Will, who also attended and gave invaluable advice to each competitor. 

A final thankyou and hurrah for those who attended in a purely supporting capacity and those people are Peter, Rob and Rosie.  We know you had a thoroughly enjoyable day, watching our guys and gals performing some amazing fencing and your enthusiasm and club spirit definitely helped the fencers along.  Thank you. 

Well done to all those who competed and we’re sure you’ll do even better at the next event and thanks to all of the supporters who went too, hopefully there will be more of you at the next event.  It sure looked like the refreshments were on par!

Rob – keeping his supporting spirits (or beer!) up!

Mark presenting the trophy to our February victor, Henry.  Well done, Henry.

The February competition got off to a good start with fourteen fencers in attendance and a handful of our newest members also trying their luck.

In a shocking twist of fate, Peter, Robert, Tadek, Sandy, Phil, Paul and Henry were all grouped together in poule one, whereas Rohan, Mark, Ellora, Steve, Torran, Tom and Nate were in poule 2.  The rules for this competition were standard – poules with each duel to five, followed by Direct Elimination (DE), with the earlier DE rounds to five, quarter and semi finals were to ten hits and the final to fifteen hits. 

Robert staked his claim early on, being the only fencer to win all of his poule bouts.  However, Mark and Ellora were hot on his heels with each having four victories.  Tadek and Tom were next up, both winning four of their six matches, with Tom having a cracking match up against Rohan and coming out on top with a 5 v 3 victory. 

With the poules as they were, it led to an interesting seeding for the DE.  Robert was first seed, closely followed by Mark and Ellora.  Henry was middling in sixth seed, but Steve, Rohan, Paul, Phil, Peter and Sandy all found themselves in the bottom half of the seeding standings.

The following Tuesday saw the completion of the event, however, with Robert, Paul and Torran all unavailable, it meant that some of the fencers were gifted byes into the next rounds.  The most fortunate of these was Rohan, who found himself straight into the semi-finals, however, the lack of competition practice on the night seemed to be his downfall, as he was knocked out by a resilient Sandy 10 v 7.  Sandy had had to fight his way through to the final, firstly with a tight bout against Tadek (5 v 4), followed by, what looked like an easier bout against Tom (10 v 3), although the scoreline did not do justice to the effort that Sandy had to put in to overcome the relative newcomer.  Nate beat Ellora, but found himself up against Henry (who had previously beaten Peter in a quick end to Peter’s progression) and, that put paid to Nate’s progression through the competition.  Steve and Phil had their usual close-knit tussle, with the Uncle Albert lookalike winning through, but Mark’s bye from the first round had obviously done him some favours as he had the energy to overcome Steve 10 v 8 and progress to the quarter final against Henry. 

The semi-finals mirrored each other on the score front, with Sandy beating Rohan 10 v 7 and Henry overcoming Mark with the same score.  After a much-needed rest and water break, Henry and Sandy stepped up to the plate to deliver a close fought and enjoyable to watch final.  Unfortunately for Sandy, after the first three-minute round, where the scores were almost even, Henry took the advantage and never looked back, with Mark eventually presenting the trophy to our victor, Henry, with a 15 v 10 score. 

Well done everybody and good luck for the March competition – as it’ll be almost Easter, you never know, we might have the winner presented with the trophy and the usual East hot cross bun prize! 

As for this month, congratulations to Henry – a worthy winner!

BUCS SOUTH EAST AND LONDON CHAMPIONSHIPS, FEBRUARY 2026

Congratulations to Sofia who represented the University of Surrey at the BUCS London and South East Championships in February 2026.  Having a good poule, whereby Sofia won two of her fights and scoring 4,2 and 2 hits in the other three matches, Sofia was seeded eighth for the tableau.  She was narrowly beaten by the ninth seed and just missed out on a quarter final spot.  Overall, Sofia finished in tenth place – not a bad finish for your first major event whilst at university.  Well done Sofia and we look forward to seeing you back at club soon.

Also at the same championships was Ryan, who competed in the Novice and Open mixed epee.  Having won three of his poule fights and scoring well in the others, he was placed 14^th out of 22 fencers.  In the novice mixed epee, Ryan was put straight into a DE situation, having been seeded 4^th.  He had a bye for the round of 16, but unfortunately lost 15-6 in the final 8 to the bronze medallist, leaving Ryan in a finishing position of 6^th overall. 

Congratulations to you both on your fencing exploits while away at university.  We look forward to seeing you both back at club soon and, Ryan, I must get a photo of you to add to the ‘hall of fame’!

Congratulations to Tadek, who competed at the South East Region Championships and BYC qualifiers at Burgess Hill on Sunday 8^th February 2026.

After a cracking poule event, whereby Tadek won three of five fights and scored both 4 and two hits in his losing fights, our junior fencer was seeded 9^th overall for the Direct Elimination event.  Up against the 24^th seed from the poules, but by no means a less difficult opponent, Tadek fenced well, but by his own admission became impatient and narrowly lost 15-13, taking him out of the competition.  His opponent, however, went on to finish seventh overall, proving just how unstable the poule seedings can be!  Overall Tadek finished in 18^th place, proving that with some more competition experience, he could well be a force to be reckoned with.  Well done Tadek and best wishes for all your future competitions. 

Our first competition of the year was not the staid, dreary affair we expect post-Christmas festivities and the January blues. 

Mark had excelled himself with this month’s competition rules, so much so, that a couple of sessions prior to the comp, the guys…and gals…used the time for practice!

We were to have a poule unique, where each fencer fought every other fencer.  Each fight was complete when the first fencer reached three hits.  Double hits were to be included.  However; and here is where the fun begins, the fencer to strike first got priority.   This meant that if you got hit, you had to remain with one foot on the line, unable to move that foot.  Essentially you lost priority.  This did not mean that the fencer with priority could just stand back, because, with no time limit, but a score of three to win the bout, the fencer with the priority still had to attempt to win the bout.  This, though proved a learning curve for the fencer without priority, as it meant that they really had to concentrate on blade work and positioning to win the point, get themselves out of trouble and put their opponent into a situation where they had to remain on the line and lose priority. 

With fourteen fencers in attendance, it was a busy night and had then had to roll over to both the Friday and following Tuesday sessions.  With time passing by and so many fencers, it was decided that, on the Tuesday, any fencers not in attendance would have a 5-0 walkover score against them, for those in attendance that they hadn’t fought (red font on the scoresheet).  For any battles, on that Tuesday, where neither fencer was in attendance it was just marked down as a 0-0 draw (yellow highlighted box on the score sheet).

Ellora, Angel, Steve, Mark and Tadek managed the most individual fights overall, without any 0-0 draws and minimal walkover scores.  There were a number of joint wins overall scores and the positions were then allocated on a countback system of who had beaten who with the joint wins.  Overall, Tadek was crowned the winner winning all his fights and only having one walkover win, which in itself is mightily impressive.  Josh was his next nearest competitor with only three losses and one win by way of a walkover.  Mark was just behind with nine wins, two by way of a walkover and four losses and, Peter and Dave tied next with eight wins each, with Peter taking the honours over Dave by way of countback.

Overall, this was quite a challenging competition and the fencers, I’m sure, will look forward to the normal rules (poules and DE) in February!

Well done Tadek and best wishes for the coming year – let’s see if you can beat Henry’s run!

Our first competition of the year was not the staid, dreary affair we expect post-Christmas festivities and the January blues. 

Mark had excelled himself with this month’s competition rules, so much so, that a couple of sessions prior to the comp, the guys…and gals…used the time for practice!

We were to have a poule unique, where each fencer fought every other fencer.  Each fight was complete when the first fencer reached three hits.  Double hits were to be included.  However; and here is where the fun begins, the fencer to strike first got priority.   This meant that if you got hit, you had to remain with one foot on the line, unable to move that foot.  Essentially you lost priority.  This did not mean that the fencer with priority could just stand back, because, with no time limit, but a score of three to win the bout, the fencer with the priority still had to attempt to win the bout.  This, though proved a learning curve for the fencer without priority, as it meant that they really had to concentrate on blade work and positioning to win the point, get themselves out of trouble and put their opponent into a situation where they had to remain on the line and lose priority. 

With fourteen fencers in attendance, it was a busy night and had then had to roll over to both the Friday and following Tuesday sessions.  With time passing by and so many fencers, it was decided that, on the Tuesday, any fencers not in attendance would have a 5-0 walkover score against them, for those in attendance that they hadn’t fought (red font on the scoresheet).  For any battles, on that Tuesday, where neither fencer was in attendance it was just marked down as a 0-0 draw (yellow highlighted box on the score sheet).

Ellora, Angel, Steve, Mark and Tadek managed the most individual fights overall, without any 0-0 draws and minimal walkover scores.  There were a number of joint wins overall scores and the positions were then allocated on a countback system of who had beaten who with the joint wins.  Overall, Tadek was crowned the winner winning all his fights and only having one walkover win, which in itself is mightily impressive.  Josh was his next nearest competitor with only three losses and one win by way of a walkover.  Mark was just behind with nine wins, two by way of a walkover and four losses and, Peter and Dave tied next with eight wins each, with Peter taking the honours over Dave by way of countback.

Overall, this was quite a challenging competition and the fencers, I’m sure, will look forward to the normal rules (poules and DE) in February!

Well done Tadek and best wishes for the coming year – let’s see if you can beat Henry’s run!

On the final Tuesday in November, we held our last full club monthly competition of the year.  With twelve fencers in attendance, the rules for this month’s competition and the following session’s attendance rates meant that it took another three evenings to try and complete the event!

This month’s rules were:

• Fencers fence for a full minute.
• The fencer with the most hits wins (no stopping at 5 hits).
• If both fencers are tied at the end of the minute then both fencers register a loss.
• The fencer with the most wins, wins.
• In the event of a tie, most hits scored will determine the winner.
• In the event of a joint number of wins and hits scored, then hits against would be taken into account.

Dave seemed to take the early lead, winning six of his eleven completed fights, however, Claudia and Richard were not to outdone, with both fencers running at four match wins each, but still having people left to fence.  Phil was also on four wins, however, his losses included getting five, six or seven hits against three opponents, showing just how high scoring some of the matches were. 

Mark and Peter were also making their presence felt with both winning five matches each with games in hand.  Despite being a late arrival, Henry had completed six fights in quick succession and won all of them!  Steve also started strong on the first Tuesday, winning four matches, but lost momentum when we had to carry over onto the Friday, but, how unlucky do you have to be?  One of Steve’s matches was logged at a loss despite him scoring eleven hits against his opponent!

By the time we hit the third carry over session, it was decided that those present would be given a 1-0 walkover win against their absent opponent and, in the event that two opposing fencers were absent, then a 0-0 draw loss would be recorded.

Bearing this in mind, Ellora, Peter, Phil, Claudia, Steve and Henry were all awarded a one match win each by way of a walkover.  Jaina, Torran, Jake and Richard all recorded 0-0 draw losses though absence.

Overall, the clear winner was Henry; even discounting his one walkover win, no-one else came close, with him recording ten outright wins and one walkover victory – quite the victory and what a way to claim the last trophy of the year.

Dave, Peter, Phil and Claudia all tied second with six match wins each. However, Phil was awarded second place by way of the most hits scored (was that the one hit scored on the walkover win – we will never know).  Claudia and Peter both had walkover wins, which didn’t help the scoring as they both scored the same number of hits, however, going to the next level, Peter had 44 hits against him, whereas Claudia’s lesser number of 40 meant that she claimed fourth place, ahead of Peter in fifth.

Steve and Mark both amassed five wins each; but even without Steve’s 1-0 walkover win against Torran, he still placed above Mark on hits scored, leaving the two men in sixth and seventh place.

Ellora and Richard both shared four wins apiece, but with three matches recorded as loss due to absence, Ellora had the upper hand for hits scored and positioned eighth with Richard in ninth.  Had Richard been there to fight, it would have been interesting to see his true position.

Bringing up the rear were Jake in tenth; Jaina, eleventh and, Torran in twelfth positions, but as all three had been present for only the first session it would have been interesting to see how their final positions could have fared if they had fought each of their matches.

So, in conclusion, a convincing win for Henry on the final competition of 2025!  I’m sure he’ll be a force to be reckoned with in 2026 too, although the high of being a newly married man (it’s the last time I’m mentioning it, I promise!) may have worn off by then and, the 2026 competition trophy could be anyone’s victory!  Well done, Henry. 

Congratulations to all for another great year and, many thanks to Mark for being the trophy caretaker and, for all of his imaginative competition rules throughout the year – they have most definitely kept the fencers AND the scorer on their toes!  The question is; just what will he come up with for 2026?  In the meantime, to one and all, have a fabulous festive season and wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2026! Ho! Ho! Ho!