Sandy boasting to the other winners that he’s taking all the glory for his and Henry’s joint win, seeing as Henry wasn’t present for the photo!

Winners – Sandy (and Henry), Claudia, Peter, Dave and Mark

The most recent club competition was decided to be held on a Friday night so that the members of the club who don’t normally make Tuesdays could have their chance to compete, as well as the juniors who now regularly attend.  With fifteen members across all ages and sexes in attendance, it was decided to hold a poule unique (where everyone fences everybody else).  Each match was to be fought over two minutes, or quicker if a fencer won sooner.  The winning fencer was to land three consecutive hits.  If a fencer was in the lead, but then the opponent landed a hit, or a double hit was scored, the score would return to 0-0.  In the event that one of the fencers was in the lead at the end of two minutes, then they would be awarded the match.  In the event that the score was even after two minutes, then the match was drawn. 

Despite getting going and all fencers preparing for their matches in reasonable time, a number of the bouts lasted the full two minutes and we struggled to get near to half the matches completed despite competing right up until the end of the booked session.  A prime example of this was the Sofia versus Jaina match which religiously saw Sofia go 1v0 up, then the next score being a double hit.  This was possibly the worst version of Groundhog Day, as we didn’t get the respite of 24hours, more like Groundhog 3.5 seconds!  Well done to Peter who managed to keep track of refereeing that one!

The following Friday we continued to try and race through the events and, in a learning curve for those who arrange these events, it was decided that the time limit for bouts would have to be much reduced, possibly even to one minute, in the event that we had just as many fencers for future competitions!  With 22 duels still left to fence after the second Friday, it was decided to try and complete some of the bouts on the Tuesday, with a final flurry on Friday 21^st and, anyone not in attendance on that Friday would have their remaining bouts decided by a ‘walk-over’ due to non-attendance. 

Overall, it was the juniors who made the biggest impact.  Initially Jake managed a couple of wins against opponents, but in his absence for the remaining sessions, Toby took over and continued his good form.  Jake, Toby and Jude all had the seniors on the back foot, with many of them scoring first and, even going 2v0 up in many of the matches, before the experience and wisdom of the seniors took over and they managed to come back and take a last-minute lead and/or win.  In many cases the win versus loss format did not do justice to the good scoring of the junior members.  The one junior to buck the trend was Claudia.  Like a silent assassin, she steadfastly and quietly got on with the job and before anyone else knew, she was six wins up and in contention to take home the trophy this month.  Clearly, her history of fencing the seniors but also regularly taking on the likes of her peers played into her hands this month, as she was able to come out all guns blazing from the off, whereas the senior members, having not had much experience fencing the newer juniors needed more time to fathom the junior technique.

Another late-comer was Sandy, who stood in for Henry and by the last two sessions, we saw the two intermingle to take on their remaining duels.  One saving grace was the retirement of Meri, who was too busy to attend the last few sessions, which gave us a greater chance of finishing when we did and, a saving grace for her opponents, as she was on two wins and three losses after the first evening, so who knows how her data may well have changed the course of the competition.  Unfortunately, the last Friday evening saw Peter, Phil and Jaina missing.  This could well have been the turning point for the results of this month’s competition because Phil was sitting pretty at six wins, but two matches in hand against the less experienced juniors.  With juniors (Jude and Toby) in attendance and wining by way of a ‘walk over’ was it this that meant that we didn’t have an outright winner on the night.

After a very long, record-setting (the longest running competition to date) we found ourselves with a five-way tie for first place.  Peter, Mark, Dave, Claudia and Henry/Sandy were all tied for first, with each having seven of their thirteen bouts.  As you look at the scores, the more eagle eyed and fencing educated of you may notice that Peter may well have been declared an overall winner.  This is because; of the five joint winners Peter beat two of the others (Mark and Dave), whereas Dave and Claudia only beat one of the others (in both cases Mark), whereas Mark and Henry/Sandy didn’t beat any of the other tied-for-first winners.  In a countback situation (yes, I do listen to you Mr Nash!) this would have put Peter H in first place, Dave and Claudia in joint second, with Mark and Henry/Sandy in joint fourth position.  However, after a lengthy debate with some announcing Peter the winner, some announcing a five-way tie, Will not helping at all (he just said you could do either!) and Mark declaring that there was no way that we were doing any more fights, it was decided to keep within the spirit in which these competitions were started and, as it was more fun, to declare a five way tie between Peter, Mark, Dave, Claudia and Henry/Sandy for the club’s longest running monthly competition to date!  Well done everybody, including the scorer, as I think we all deserve a decent rest…until the next time!

Well done to our February/March/Nearly April monthly club competition winners:

Sandy (Henry), Claudia, Peter, Dave and Mark.

A very well done to Rob, who competed in Category 1 of the Men’s British Veterans Fencing Competition in Nottingham this weekend. There were 12 entrants in this event and it was competed over 1 poule of the full 12 fencers. Rob won seven of his poule matches, with four of those having his opponent landing only two hits, two of those wins his opponent only landed three hits and last was the only close call with Rob just winning by five hits to four. In the matches that he lost, Rob managed to score three hits in two of them and, for the other two, it was close calls with Rob just missing out five hits to four in each. This meant that Rob had an overall indicator score of +11, which was the fourth highest indicator overall. Unfortunately for Rob, one of his opponents, despite having an indicator of only +7, had managed to win 8 of his bouts, which pushed Rob down to fifth overall. Because this was a poule unique, where every fencer faces each other, it meant that they didn’t follow up with the Direct Elimination round, which as we all know, is detrimental to Rob, who thrives on the tactics required for the fifteen point matches.

To his credit, upon further analysis of the poule matches, it shows that in the poules, Rob beat the competitors who were awarded gold, silver and fourth place and, he only lost to the bronze medallist by 1 point, showing that had the DE taken place, Rob would have indeed been quite the medal contender…but then we all knew that anyway!

So, to conclude, apologies to Rob for the old photo accompanying this report, but let’s face it, apart from a change in haircut, it never gets old (and neither does he)! Finally, a huge congratulations from all of us here at Gravesham Rob. We’re pretty sure, given the poule results that you would have indeed medalled had a Direct Elimination been run. From this day forward you’ll have to be known as ‘Robbed Jennings’! Well done Rob.

A huge well done to Sofia, who competed at the Invicta Open in mid March 2025. Sofia managed to finish a very credible 21st out of 37 female epee fencers, many of whom were seniors with vast amount of experience. Sofia seeded well after the poules and made it to the 2nd round of Direct Elimination, losing narrowly by 15 points to 13 points to just miss out on the quarter finals.

Prior to the start of the Invicta competition, they had a rolling electronic board, showing each athletes current national rankings. Sofia was up there as being placed 204th nationally for this current year. This is a marvellous achievement for both Sofia and Gravesham Fencing Club and we hope to see you rise further up those rankings with each competition that you do. Well done Sofia.

On Friday 14th February 2025, the 6-7pm junior class ran a little competition between themselves, overseen by Coach Will, with some help from Sofia (not pictured – as I had to crop an old photo!). With eight juniors in attendance, the competition was held over one poule, with each attendee fencing all of the others. Each duel, was similar to a true competition, with the fencers against the clock and fighting until the first to reach 5 hits.

As you will see, the fencers names are to the left. If you scroll across (left to right) from their name, you will see in each column an entry. If the column has a ‘V’ in it, it means that they were victorious in that battle and, the number underneath, is the number of hits that they landed in that battle. If there is no ‘V’ and just a number, it means that they lost that battle, but shows the number of hits that they landed against their opponent.

In this instance, you will see that fencer number one was Alex. As you scroll across, you will see that when he fenced James (fencer number two) he was victorious and scored the full five hits (if you run out of time, you will still be declared the winner even if you haven’t managed the full five hits, as long as you are leading). You will then see that when he fought Theodora (fencer number three) he lost that match but managed to score three hits against Theodora. If you scroll down to Theodora, you will then see that she has a ‘V’ in her first column, as well as the number ‘5’, showing that she beat Alex by 5 hits to 3. Scrolling left to right against your name, shows how many matches you won and the number of hits you got against your opponent. If you go to the column number that corresponds with your name (so, if you look at column 1 for Alex and column 3 for Theodora) you will see how many hits your opponent got against you. So, You will see that James didn’t manage to score any hits against Alex (as there is a ‘0’ in his column) and Theodora was hit three times by Alex as there is a ‘3’ in her top column, meaning she won the duel 5 v 3.

At a competition, once this section is completed, it determines the seeding the for next stage of the competition, called a Direct Elimination. We didn’t have time for this, but in a DE, if you lose, you lose and are eliminated from the competition. This continues until a winner is crowned.

The seedings are worked out on the following levels:

1. by the percentage of matches won. It has to be the percentage of matches because in some cases the poule numbers may be uneven, so the number of matches played will also by odd.
2. if the fencers from the same or different poules have the same number of matches won, then we look at the HS/HR Total (Hits Struck v Hits Received Total) or, as is commonly known at competition ‘The Indicator’. The higher the indicator, the higher the seeding.
3. If the percent of matches won and the indicator scores are the same, the next level to work out the seeding is ‘Hits won’. This is who, out of the fencers struck an opponent the most times. Although the indicators may be the same, it may be made up of a different combination of hits scored versus hits received, so the fencer who managed to strike more will be declared a higher seed. Thankfully, normally, we do not need to work out any more levels – but I’ll explain that if we ever need to!

So, as you can see, on this occasion Theodora was our most successful fencer. She won 100% of her duels on the evening and managed to score an indicator of 20, meaning that she hit her opponents 20 times more than they managed to hit her! It’s always a good sign when your indicator is a positive number!

Very well done to Theodora on her victory – will she be able to do the double?

And, a huge congratulations to all those fencers who took part. You conducted yourselves with good sportsmanship, professionalism and most importantly, plenty of flair! We can’t wait for the next one…where I promise to try and get a better photo…and of all of you!

Well done everybody.

On another cold, wet and dreary Sunday, Claudia and Sofia made the maddening journey down to The Triangle Leisure Centre, in Burgess Hill, for the 2025 South East Region Youth Championships.  Both competing in Epee, the girls had the same registration time of 12.15pm, meaning that at least it wasn’t too early a start, on a Sunday, at the beginning of February!

Sofia was competing in the Girl’s U18 epee, which consisted of 17 fencers and, Claudia competed in the Girl’s U16 epee, consisting of 19 fencers.  With a number of Byes, for the competition, being claimed (possibly by those in the midst of GCSE/A-Level mock exams) it meant that, for both girls, they would need to place well, in order to qualify for the British Youth Championships in May 2025.

Despite the odd numbering in the poules, both girls found themselves in a poule of 6 fencers.  Despite a tentative start from both, they managed to keep their composure and after each of their five duels, both girls, in their respective ages, came out as having won all five bouts.  In the Under 18’s, Sofia was the only fencer managing this feat, putting her into the Direct Elimination (DE) as the top seed.  Claudia, in the Under 16’s, was one of only two fencers to win all five bouts, but her indicator score pushed her down into the second seed placing.  With the numbers fencing, both girls, thanks to their high seeding, were given a bye into the last 16 of the tableau.  Sofia came through her final 16 bout, with what looked like an evenly fought match, winning 15-11.  Claudia’s match was of much the same result, fencing against a competitor from the poules, she managed a 15-10 victory to take her through to the final 8 as well. 

Claudia’s next competitor had a ground swell of support from her fellow team mates, which made the bout all the more intimidating for Claudia.  However, from being behind, she pulled up into the lead.  A few double hits later, it looked like she could be progressing into the semi-finals, however, the shorter competitor of the two took advantage of a couple of run-ins from Claudia, landing the hits that put her in the lead.  Unfortunately for Claudia, it was the double hits at the end that saw her knocked out, as she was unable to take the full advantage and pull back into the lead.  Her day ended with her finishing in fifth place overall, which was quite the achievement, given some of the competitors who finished below her on the day.  Well-done Claudia.

Sofia’s quarter final match finished much quicker than the earlier DE.  She managed a 15-8 win against her opponent, who was unable to contemplate Sofia’s slower, more defensive stance and, Sofia regularly took advantage of the rash moves by her opponent.  However, Sofia’s next match (the semi-final) was in similar vein to Claudia’s; with the vast numbers of support for the opposing player, doing their best to rattle the Gravesham girl.  With the lead to-ing and fro-ing, it was the opponent who managed to settle in the lead.  With four or five double hits being scored, it was 14-11 to Sofia’s competition.  Unfortunately for Sofia, despite remaining composed, the opponent managed to land the final, fateful hit that saw her, and not Sofia, progress to the final.  This meant that Sofia finished 3^rd overall.

As previously mentioned, despite a number competitors taking their allotted byes for this event, both Claudia and Sofia placed highly enough that they have both qualified for the BYC’s in May of this year.  Let’s just hope that their school exam timetables allow them to compete!  Well done girls, keep flying the flag for Gravesham, you are doing us proud!

Despite a slow start to the evening; probably due in part to the poor weather and the ‘January Blues’; the numbers soon picked up and we had a very healthy nine competitors for the first monthly competition of the year.  With the usual January winner, Henry, at the Vicar’s for tea and a meeting about his upcoming nuptials, this event was ripe for a new champion.  Rumour has it that Rob was also missing due to his inherent fear the predicted one-hit format!

Indeed, Rob’s prediction was correct.  The need to ease the fencers into the new competition year, as well as re-train the scorer, made for an easy format for the first event of 2025.  The rules were as follows:

1.  Everybody fences everybody else
2. You have one minute per duel
3. In the event that a fencer lands a hit, s/he wins the match
4. In the event that a double hit is obtained, then the match is finished with neither fencer scoring
5. In the event that the time runs out, the match is finished with neither fencer scoring.

After some initial dilly-dallying whilst we waited for Will to finish some coaching and, the fencers to complete warm-up matches, we raced through the event with ease.  During the event there was plenty of haranguing of the scorer from Dave, Mark, Peter and Sandy as they were neck and neck on games won and, desperately trying to work out if there were any techniques to become champion, or, which clashes were left, so that they might predict who would win.  Steve tried to pull a fast one in his match with Dave; which would have given Dave the win over Sandy, but the scorer was on to his unscrupulous behaviour and made sure that the event was completed in a true and fair manner!  Peter had been the early leader but with the later matches seeing him acquire two losses and a double hit, Sandy, Mark and Dave saw their chance to make a dent in that lead. 

Richard fought valiantly throughout the evening – another casualty of injury, he was fencing with his non-dominant left hand.  Despite this he secured a great hit against Claudia and, managed to hold Meri to a time out.  Claudia kept her composure throughout the event scoring a surprise hit against the in-form, Peter; managing a double-hit with Sofia; a time-out against Meri and, finally, scoring the win against an unusually lacklustre Steve.  The best match had to be Steve versus Meri.  With Steve attempting to run at, and attack, Meri, she held her nerve to score the hit during an entanglement of bodies!

Once all of the matches were played, the total wins were added up for each player.  With Dave, Mark and Sandy all on six wins each, we had to rely on some sort of countback to determine a winner.  With Dave and Sandy both having a match each that was timed out or a double hit, rather than an outright loss, Mark was demoted to third place.   Then, on the countback of who had won the Sandy versus Dave match, it was determined that, as the winner of that match, Sandy had to be crowned January 2025 Champion.  Peter came in fourth with five wins.  Steve, Claudia and Sofia all managed two wins each, but with the girls each managing to time-out or double hit in two of their matches, that saw them placed in fifth equal and Steve pushed down to seventh.  Meri managed the eighth spot, despite having one win to her name just like Richard, but again it was the double-hit/time out ruling that saw her push him into the final placing. 

It was a fun and interesting evening (and for the scorer, a relatively easy one too!).  Well done to all those who competed and a special congratulations to the man who has knocked Henry from his perch as the usual January champion – Sandy!  Congratulations Sandy, may this be the start of a good year for you!

Next competition commences on the last Tuesday in February – details of the format to be decided!

With the first foil competition after the Covid pandemic taking over two years, it is a pleasure to report the Annual Gravesham Foil Competition for 2024 was completed within seven months of its commencement.  With a very healthy eleven competitors taking part, there were plenty of opportunities for the members to either hone their skills in this discipline, or, learn some new talents.  As it was the responsibility of the Honorary Chairman to keep tabs on the results of the poules and direct eliminations, the author of this report cannot provide more than the final placings and photos of the presentation ceremony (thanks go to Sandy for the pictures!).  Special mentions must be made to Sandy, who commenced this competition whilst overcoming a foot injury; Phil, who managed a very credible sixth place, having had shoulder surgery and starting the competition fencing left-handed and finally, Helen, who decided to take on the men despite not having long returned to fencing.  This author also has the memory of a fish (thanks to her age) and such a limited knowledge of fencing that she is unable to provide any commentary on the competition, so I shall leave it by commending Joe on his win, Steve on his second place…and Vets Champion and, Sandy and Paul in joint third.  Congratulations to all who took part for making it a fun and spirited competition and we wish you all the best of luck for this year’s competition.

FINAL PLACINGS:

1 – JOE

2 – STEVE (AND VETS CHAMPION)

3= – SANDY / PAUL

5  – PETER G

6 – PHIL

7 – MARK

8 – ROHAN

9 – KEVIN

10 – HELEN

11 – PETER H

Your medallists.  Post matches, pre medals.

Steve and Paul – “pose looking strong lads; not like we’re going to suffer tomorrow”

Joe – “Anyone want another ten rounds of points to 15?”

Third place medallists – Paul and Sandy

Due to a small technical issue, only one medal was available on the night – clearly one medal that neither man wanted to let go of!

Silver medal presentation – Mark bowing to Steve’s foil prowess

Steve – “what do you mean only second?”

Steve – “in my modelling career, you would either hold the prop like this…”

“…or the prop would take centre stage…like this”

Steve – “two medals?  I never had this many props to deal with in my modelling career!  Now, are they supposed to cover anything in particular?”

Steve – “Two medals and I’m the Vets Champion.  I best pull out my best ‘power pose’ for the camera”

2024 Annual Foil Competition Winner, Joe, receiving his medal.

Steve – wondering what might have been if he’d spent more time practising his fencing instead of his modelling poses (by the way, ‘the relaxed, nonchalant look’ is another catalogue classic pose)

Your Gravesham 2024 Annual Foil Competition Winner – Joe

Your Gravesham 2024 Annual Foil Competition Medallists

L-R – Joint third, Paul and Sandy; Winner, Joe; Second and Vets Champion, Steve

Paul – “What does this medal look like, is it worth a fight in the car park later?”

Your medallists again

Paul – “yep, I’ll have this off of his neck by the end of the night…”

2024 Gravesham Annual Foil Competition – Medallists

Paul, Sandy, Joe, Steve

Well done everybody.

The three winning musketeers – Henry, Sandy and Phil

In what was to be our last monthly club competition of 2024 before the festive break, it was decided that the competition would take the form of a team relay.  With twelve attendees (and a latecomer, who was subbed in for the final and third place play-offs) there were four teams of three, with the seeding decided by ‘The Oracle’ (Mr Nash).  Playing across two pistes, Team A (Paul, Claudia and Mark) were up against Team B (Rob, Jaina and Peter), whilst Team C (Steve, Richard and Dave) were competing against Team D (Phil, Henry and Sandy) for a place in the final.  With last year’s team pairing of Mark and Peter (who managed to win every team event last year) split up for this event, would either of them become victorious, or was it to prove that their pairing is what kept their teams strong last year?

Mark and Peter found themselves on Piste 1, with their teams competing against each other.  Paul’s team took an early lead, but by the end of the first round of the three fencers, the scores were evenly tied at 15-15.  Rob’s team then powered forward and by the end of the second round of three fencers, his team had a commanding 30-22 lead which, after the next duel looked insurmountable at 35-22.  A comeback from Paul’s team saw the penultimate fight finish at 40-28 in favour of Rob’s team with the final fencers still to go.  Not a team to give in, Paul’s trio gave a final flourish, pulling back 14 points, but the doubles were enough to see Rob’s team victorious by 45 points to 42 and, putting them in the final. 

Piste 2 was a much livelier affair!  Despite Henry breaking his sword blade to a 45-degree angle against Steve’s bulging bicep in the first round, he managed to hold his composure and put Sandy’s team 5-1 up.  The next round didn’t fair much better for Steve’s team, finishing at a 10-4 loss, but the third fencer up, Richard, gave the team hope and fought back to only a three-point deficit. By the end of the second round of the three fencers, Steve’s team was down 30-21.  With seemingly no way back the team rallied in the penultimate fights, but couldn’t keep the momentum going, eventually succumbing to 45-35 loss.  This saw Sandy’s team progress to the final, against Rob and his compadres!

The third-place play off saw Team C (Dave, Richard and Steve) compete against Team A (Paul, Claudia and Mark).  Both teams were evenly matched up until the fourth pairing, which saw Paul’s team pull ahead by 4 points.  Despite staying behind, the next two matches saw a comeback from Team C and, then saw them pull ahead 40-36, before the final duel.  At the end of the three-minute time limit, the score had been evened to 45-45.  Paul’s team were dealt ‘priority’, not that they needed it, as Paul managed to land the winning hit within 11 seconds and secure the third-place title for Team A (Paul, Claudia and Mark).

The final saw Team B (Rob, Jaina and Peter) take on Team D (Phil, Henry and Sandy).  Again, the teams were evenly matched in the first two pairings, however, by the end of the third tie, Sandy’s team had taken a 15-10 lead.  This though, was short-lived.  Rob’s team fought back well over the next two rounds to take 25-23 point lead.  Not to be outdone, the lead to and fro’d over the next three rounds, putting all the pressure on the final two fencers to ‘bring it home’ for their respective team.  Sandy’s team had taken a small lead, 40-38, which gave them the smallest cushion for the final fight.  Holding their nerve, they nailed the final bout and came out victors with a 45-40 victory.   With neither Mark or Peter on the winning team, it just goes to show that we should be wary of them partnering in the future too!

Well done Team Sandy, the victors on the night.  Wooden spoon to Team Steve (even if was by the very smallest of margins!).

Congratulations to everybody who has taken part in the monthly club competitions this year.  They really have seen some tremendous fencing ability, as well as giving us some very entertaining Tuesday nights.  We all look forward to next year, to see what formats Mark and Paul can come up with, but, in the meantime, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a very Happy New Year and, a healthy a prosperous 2025!

A huge congratulations to Kevin, who finished a very commendable 9^th place, in both the epee and foil competitions, at the Civil Service 2024 National Service Championships on the weekend of 30^th November/1^st December 2024.  Kev was extremely pleased with both of his results.  The foil was to be expected; not being his primary weapon, but the epee result was particularly pleasing given the quality of the field.  The highlight of the day was scoring points against the eventual winner in the poules of the epee, with Kevin declaring that the winning fencer was of quite considerable quality.  Well done, Kevin, hopefully you’ll get a nice rest over the festive period now and, come back fighting with a renewed force in 2025! 

On Sunday 24^th November 2024, Sofia, alongside family supporters and Coach Will, made her way down to the Triangle Centre, at Burgess Hill, for the 2024 Sussex Fencing Open.  Competing in the Women’s Epee, she had a tough fight against both the exuberance of the youth entrants, as well as the wisdom of the older athletes in attendance. 

With 13 entrants overall, Sofia found herself in the larger of the two poules.  Despite fencing very well, she found herself finishing even; 3 wins and 3 losses.  The -7 indicator did not do justice to the quality of her fencing in the poule.  However, she managed to seed well at seventh place, giving her the opportunity to fight the tenth seed in the first round of the Direct Elimination.  Unfortunately, she lost the DE 12 v 15.  Coach Will declaring that she “fought well, but was unable to escape the double hits on this occasion”.  Overall, Sofia finished ninth in a highly competitive epee contest.  Congratulations Sofia and, onwards and upwards for the next competition.