Honorary Chairman, Paul (far left), handing over the trophy to the victorious team of (l-r) Peter, Sandy, Will and Mark

In the week following the conclusion of the club’s, record-setting, longest monthly club competition, fifteen fencers arrived at Cygnet Leisure with the bit between their teeth and compete for the third team relay title of the year.  With Richard excluding himself, due to still suffering the symptoms of a recent bout of Covid, we found ourselves in the enviable position of three pistes, with one being manned permanently, by Richard, as referee.  Despite piste 1 not having a working timer, Dave found a long-standing app, on his mobile, that proved invaluable for timing and scoring…if only anybody using it had the eyes for the small print!  With all fencers ready to commence, we made a start at exactly 7.30pm.

The middle piste saw Steve, Rohan, Henry and Tadek fence each other, with Steve and Rohan each managing 3 out of 4 wins.  Hot on their heels was Henry with 2 victories and Peter and Tadek each managing to bow out of the poules having got 1 win each under their belts.  Most of these matches were closely fought, with no fencer receiving zero hits scored in any of their bouts; although one must wonder about the competitiveness of this group with Peter having to receive an apology from one fencer for a particularly hardened shot and, Steve having his sword spliced in two in his match against Tadek.  They all finished the poule in one piece (apart from the sword!). 

On the end piste, Will proved that his time spent teaching youngsters in America, over the holidays, had not gone to waste and he saw off all his competitors, winning all four of his fights.  Newcomer, but old-time fencer, Tom, was as equally unfazed by his new surroundings and came in second with 3 wins.  Dave managed 2 victories, but after an injury and a few sessions away, the break proved too much for Paul, who could only win one match.  Sofia placed 5^th in and extremely difficult poule, but kept the side up for the juniors by scoring consistently and not letting any of the others have it all their own way.

The final poule, refereed by Richard, saw Rob claim the top spot, winning all his matches, although Andrew proved his undoing by holding Rob to a 4 v 1 victory, rather than allowing Rob to triumph with the illustrious 5 hits in the three minutes allowed.  Abs, having previously used his height to his advantage, is now proving a contender, having improved his form, to finish second in the poule, having won 3 out of his 4 matches.  Mark was next with 2 wins and Claudia also managing to claim a win.  Andrew’s recent absence was glaring with no match conquests, although he did manage to score against both Rob and Claudia.  Despite a delay due to faulty equipment (always remember to try first – ‘turn it off, turn it back on again!’) this was the final poule to finish and still in plenty of time to, possibly, complete the event in one night.  However, problems with the laptop, making it difficult to work quickly enough (user error?..never!!!  A thank you to James for his help on the night), meant that the team relay knockout would have to be concluded the following week.  I guess you can’t have it all. 

The first Tuesday in October saw the conclusion of the September competition.  After much deliberation and having finally sought the wisdom of the fencing oracle, Paul, the teams were announced.  With Andrew on holiday, but Jake and Sandy in attendance, we managed to compile four teams of four, ready for the finale.  Team A; of Dave, Henry, Jake and Rob, managed to see off Team D; of Claudia, Steve, Tadek and Tom, to make the final.  Claudia’s nemesis, Dave, took an early lead against her for Team A, with Henry holding the lead against Steve to take Team A into a 6 v 1 lead at the halfway stage.  Next up came Tadek, who provided a much needed comeback, and boost, for Team D, pulling the score back to 7 v 9, against Jake, but still in Team A’s favour, but with some hope in sight.  Rob and Tom finished the relay for Team A and Team D respectively, but were evenly matched, meaning that Rob, managed to sustain the earlier lead for Team A, winning 12 v 10 and taking them into the final.

Team B; of Mark, Peter, Will and Sandy took on Team C; of Abs, Sofia, Rohan and Paul for their place in the final.  Mark took an early lead, against Abs, for Team B, with Peter extending the lead against Sofia and, Will following on his teams impressive run, against Rohan, to give Sandy a 9 v 4 head start against Paul in the final leg.  With Sandy back from a few weeks away, he had the bit between his teeth and Paul stood no chance against his spirit, ensuring that Team B were through to the final with a resounding 12 v 6 victory.

The third place play off saw no position changes to any of the fencers, ensuring that Abs fought Steve, Sofia was against Claudia, Rohan fenced Tadek (much to Tadek’s dismay) and Paul battled Tom.  After a closely fought first round, Steve scraped the win 3 v2 against Abs.  Claudia accomplished a couple of well-placed hits against Sofia, extending the lead to 6 v 3.  Despite his scepticism at facing Rohan, Tadek maintained the three-point lead, through a series of double hits and in the final bout a couple of double hits meant that Tom sauntered Team D to the third-place victory.

Team A and Team B both saw positional changes for the final.  Team A’s new order of Dave, Henry, Jake and Rob, were to brave Team B’s Mark, Peter, Sandy and Will.  With Dave taking an early 3 v 0 lead over Mark and, Henry preserving the advantage it looked like Team A might have it in the bag.  But, Peter’s leg against Henry proved the turning point.  Although Peter completed the round behind, he had pulled the points advantage back for Team B, to being only 4 v 6 down.  The third leg proved to be the tactical trailblazer for Team B, as Sandy overcame the deficit and procured a 9 v 7 lead for Team B.  The tables had turned.  The final pairing of Rob v Will proved decisive, with Will scoring the final round 3 v 1 and taking the team to a 12 v 8 victory and, Rob declaring, on the presentation of the trophy; “If I’d known there was a trophy at stake, I’d have tried harder”!  Well done Team B (Mark, Peter, Sandy and Will), you are the champions for September.  For a ‘friendly’ event, there was a lot of audience participation this week – very raucous cheering from the sidelines!  On a final note, it has been brought to my attention that Mark and Peter have so far been in each of the victorious teams from the relay competitions.  It looks to me like the only way to win in this event is (1) be paired with these two or (2) break up the Mark/Peter dream team.  Only time will tell…

Well done to everyone competing, especially the victors and, next months competition will be held on the final Tuesday in October.  Be there, ready, for a 7.30pm start.

Despite Will’s return to Gravesham, we only saw a trickle of people arrive for the delayed August 2023 monthly club competition, until the start time of 7.30pm arrived and again, we had a good number of 14 fencers.  Two poules of seven fencers (as decided by Sandy, much to Richard’s dismay!) got their fencing underway, with each bout being decided within the three-minute time limit.  Despite the hot and humid weather, the fencers gradually made their way through the rounds.  In poule 1, Claudia gave Sandy a shock, leading for most of the match, but the Scotsman coming good at the end – edging it 5-4.  Sandy continued to make good headway through each of his matches only being beaten by Harry.  Harry, returning to Gravesham after a stint away at university, managed to win all six of his bouts, with only Tadek and Sandy coming close to beating him.  Rohan and left hander, Tadek, were next in line in this poule each managing to win half of their matches, with Steve and Phil only managing two wins each and clearly on the ‘hustle’ for the one shot knock out the following week!  Despite not winning a match, Claudia landed some impressive shots and the score lines probably didn’t do her justice.  Maybe the one shot knock out will be her thing. 

In poule number 2, Paul won all of his matches, although two of them were so closely fought that he didn’t even win with the full five hits.  Mark and Peter were hot on his heels with four wins each, with one of Peter’s matches being quite bizarre in that the fencers seem to run at each other or away from each other, without landing a hit!  Will proved that, despite three months abroad, he had not lost his touch completely and won half of his matches.  Sofia followed on with two out of six wins and Jake and Richard both finished the night having won at least one bout each.  Richard was not happy with the knockout draw, having pulled Mark and has questioned the scorer’s ability, but a thorough examination has shown that all is indeed correct. 

However, due to illness and injury, the one-hit elimination week was also delayed, making the August monthly competition a record setting one, in that it is currently the longest running monthly club competition in Gravesham’s history (at the time of printing!).  Eager not to delay for a further week, as this would impact the commencement of the September competition, time ticked by as we awaited confirmation as to the fencers who could make the elimination week.  The Debnam’s had succumbed to Covid, Sandy was stuck in traffic, Phil had a knee injury and Sofia was stuck at home completing homework, leaving 9 of the fencers standing and ready to fight for the coveted trophy.  Harry, Mark, Claudia, Will and Steve were gifted byes into the quarter finals, with Steve really pulling the draw of the night and having another bye straight through to the semi-finals.  With only Jake v Peter and, Phil v Tadek having to fence in the final 16’s, could the Hutchins men show the rest of the field that they were continuing their good form from the previous month’s competition?  Sadly….no; leaving Harry v Tadek, Mark v Jake, Claudia v Will to fight for the places in the semi-finals.  Harry saw off Tadek, setting up a semi-final with Mark, who had beaten Jake, with Claudia eliminating Will to set up a semi-final with Steve, who had yet to fight anyone in the elimination stages.  This proved to be in his favour, as he managed to land the one shot that beat Claudia and set up a one-hit final versus Harry, who had beaten Mark.  The final was interrupted by Steve’s broken equipment (sword/wire/electronic equipment – who knows?) but the fencing equivalent of “turn it off, turn it back on again” was enough to see the final bout fought and, youngster Harry overcome the veteran Steve.  Well done to all of those who competed and get well soon to all of those who couldn’t make it!  A particular congratulations to Harry, who triumphed in his final session before he returns to university, we will see you back in October! 

I am off to prepare for the September competition which starts at 7.30pm sharp next Tuesday!  See you there. 

Mark (clearly hiding a dodgy new veneers job with the trophy) presenting the trophy to Phil (in either a tired or an arrogant winner pose, we’re not sure) and Claudia presenting the KitKats (the calories and chocolate should perk Phil up!)

With the July monthly club competition falling on a Tuesday night, at the start of the school six-week getaway, there was some worry about numbers attending.  However, we needn’t have been worried with a very healthy thirteen fencers, in attendance, given the time of year.  It was decided to run two poules, one of six and one of seven, with Gully being the guest fencer making up the seven.  With four pistes set up, we got off to a punctual start at 7.30pm and made good progress through the matches on the two poules, even with Paul wanting ‘another minute or two’ between some bouts.  Gully dominated his poule winning five of his six duels being beaten only by Rohan on the night.  Mark came a close second winning all but two matches, losing to Gully and to left hander, Tadek.  Tadek, has shown great promise in the last few weeks, really coming along in his game and being one of the fencers that everyone seems to wince at, when they hear that he is their competitor – with all losers blaming his left-hand game.  Phil, Tadek and Paul all won 3 of their six matches with Gully proving that Tadek is no match for the accomplished fencer, being the only person to beat him 5-0.  Sofia had a slower start to the night, winning only 1 of her six matches in a very difficult poule; was this caused by the delay in getting her equipment to her, or spending too much time on the crochet, now that her exams have passed?  Only time will tell come September and the young lady is back into the school routine.  

In the second poule of six athletes, Steve and Dave were the stand out stars, both winning four of their five bouts.  Richard, Peter and Abs all won 40% of their matches – a stand out night for Richard, especially as he was still trying to overcome a nasty bout of ‘man-thrax’ that had kept him away from the club only the Friday before (his wife was very sympathetic, the children…not so much!).  Claudia struggled, winning only one of her five duels, but blamed her disastrous poule round on the long run that she had taken earlier that day and had subsequently ‘wiped her out’.  No doubt, she won’t make the same mistake for the elimination section next Tuesday!  The following week could see a winner declared extremely quickly because, with a number of fencers already announcing absence there could be a lot of byes.  On the other hand, the Richard/Peter fence off could take a while, as neither wants to win and face Gully in the final 8! 

After a two-week hiatus (the following week, after the poules, we had a glut of ‘guest’ fencers to the session, so it was decided to put the competition on hold and make the most of having some different faces present) we finally concluded the July monthly competition.  Peter and Richard were still arguing over who was going to lose and not have the ignominy of facing Gully in the final 8, Claudia was still gloating about Paul being away and getting a bye, Rohan was gutted to see that Phil had returned from work and would have to fence off for the final 8 round, while Sofia and Mark still couldn’t work out who would be the master out of the two of them, for a position in the final 8.  Thankfully, it wouldn’t be long before we would know who would be the monthly champion. 

Four of the final 16 sixteen matches were byes, with three of the other four matches being very close-run things; all finishing with 5-4 score lines!  The only match to buck the trend was the Tadek versus Abs duel.  Despite a number of the accomplished membership all praising Tadek’s recent form, Abs swiftly and deftly overcame the left-hander with an astonishing 5-1 scoreline.  Abs modestly claimed that the height difference and therefore his reach had won the day.  Peter, much to his disappointment, saw off Richard, to face Gully; Sofia beat Mark to face Claudia; Phil overcame Rohan to face Dave and finally Abs was to duel Steve in the quarterfinals. 

All of the quarterfinals were closely matched with three of the four matches finishing in a 5-4 scoreline and the final match ending 5-3.  Despite his reluctance at getting through and facing Gully, Peter had a great evening, overpowering the guest from Blackheath and beating him on the final point.  Sofia versus Claudia had been a bit of a non-affair, despite the 5-4 score line, as neither lady had wanted to progress and potentially face Gully (come on people, a bit more enthusiasm please, you’ve got to be in it to win it…just look at Peter!)  Dave narrowly missed out to Phil, with neither man able to claim a lack of practise as they had both been away the previous week and, in the final contest Steve beat Abs 5-3.

The semi-final round was a battle to 10 points.  With both matches quite even on paper, Phil and Steve showed the equality in their games with a final score of 10-7 to Phil, setting him up for a father versus son showdown in the final, as Peter, having the night of his life, beat Sofia 10-3. 

After a short break, the fencers faced off for the accolade of both July Monthly Club Competition winner AND prowess in the Hutchin’s household…haven’t we done this before?  Phil took the very early lead and Peter came back just as quickly and overtook his dad on the scoring front.  Back and forth the points went with Peter eventually taking the lead and looking to win it, much to the delight of all the young guns in the room.  Phil, with plenty of support from the old guard, thrust a couple of moves and bought the score level and, a couple of double hits later, we looking at 14 a piece and it all coming down to who could get that winning hit.  Much to the delight of anyone over 50 years old (with or without hair!), Phil proved that age and experience can always overcome the exuberance of youth and claimed a 15-14 victory over his son.  I bet that was a joyous car ride home for the Hutchins Jnr of the family!

Well done to everyone who fought and particularly well done to our July victor, Phil (who not only took home the trophy, but selection of flavoured KitKats exclusively from Japan – we know how to spoil you!)

Next monthly club competition will begin on the final Tuesday in August.  Be there and ready for a 7.30pm start!

LONDON REGION SUMMER 2023 NOVICE AND INTERMEDIATE COMPETITION

After a somewhat fraught journey, the ‘boys’ eventually made it to the check-in with only minutes to spare.  After a quick warm-up they were placed in poules made up of Dave and Kevin and twelve other men for the intermediate epee.  Both men were self-appointed intermediate by way of their past fencing experience both in and out of competition, however, it became clear that this ‘grading’ clearly needs some more guidelines, with far superior fencers duelling in both the novice and intermediate sections, primarily based on a lack of fencing competition results, rather than ability.  With the journey taking its toll on both Dave and Kevin, they fought the first round of poules tentatively and, probably not to the best of their abilities.  However, in the second round of poules both men felt that they had warmed up and did themselves better justice.  The elimination section proved to be both men’s undoing, however, both were elated that at no point did they finish a match without scoring and, in many cases, scoring well against their opponent, even if the win did not go their way.  Overall, Dave finished in eleventh position, with Kevin in 14^th and both men having gained vital experience against a field of men that they would not normally participate against.  Well done guys and keep up the good work for Gravesham! 

As an addendum, regular Gravesham guest fencer, Raphael, finished a very respectable 3^rd place in the Men’s novice epee.  Well done Raphael, now for the Junior Pentathlon Championships in Hungary!

The week following the Blackheath Club visit saw the Gravesham monthly club competition.  The format, again, for this month, was a round of poules followed by a one-hit direct elimination, until an overall winner was declared.

Fourteen club members and a paying visitor, from Blackheath, saw a poule of 8 and a poule of 7 hit the pistes for the direct elimination seeding.  Rob dominated his poule of seven fencers, winning every duel.  Peter, Dave and Stuart were hot on his heels, each winning four matches.  First timer, Abs, had a difficult introduction to his first Tuesday evening appearance and monthly club competition; but he held his own, managing to score in four of the six bouts and winning a fifth match.  

The poule of eight was declared to be the “poule of death” by a defeatist, on the night, Richard, but he needn’t have worried as he finished second in his poule, with five out of seven wins, losing only to ‘visiting’ Gully (where Richard still managed to point) as well as a narrow defeat, of 4v5, to his nemesis, Sofia.  Our visitor from Blackheath, Gully, managed to win all but one of his duels and, Henry, Mark and Rohan were hot on their heels each managing four out of seven wins.  

At the end of the poules, Rob topped the seedings, with Gully in second.  On the last outing for this format, Richard and Stuart made the final, and, having found themselves as third and fifth seeds respectively, there would be every chance that they could replicate this again, this time around.  However, delays in fitting club kit and a number of equipment malfunctions taking up time, meant that, yet again, the direct elimination stage was rolled over to the following week. 

The ensuing week saw a number of changes to the tableau. The Debnams were away, Gully had other commitments, Mark was ill and Sofia still be in full flow of her academic exams saw some of the competitors gain byes into the quarter finals; whereas the inclusion of Phil, Claudia, Sandy and Paul (all back from their other commitments) saw some of the fencers having to fight for their place in the quarter finals, instead of just passing through on a bye.  Returning from work commitments, Phil managed to come up trumps on the night of the direct elimination; first receiving a bye into the quarter finals and then again into the semi-finals, where there was a father-son match up and family bragging rights at stake. Peter had seen off the last winner of this format, Stuart, in the quarter finals, having previously been awarded a bye, to eventually face his father (Phil really is his father, but only epees and no light sabres were in use!).

Claudia’s extended break for exams and various family commitments saw her return to the fold and successfully see of Andrew, before taking on her arch rival, Dave, in the quarter finals.  With neither player rushing in and getting caught by the one hit, it was Dave who managed victory, on the very last hit, on the very last second of the duel, to secure his semi final place.  Henry quickly overcame Tadek to secure a place in the quarter finals against either Sandy of Paul.  Here, neither man was willing to succeed the match to a rash manoeuvre and the time continued to count down to zero.  In a stroke of genius, it was the spin of a pen that decided who would take priority for the next, and deciding, three minutes, were a winner would be decided.  In this second three minutes, it wasn’t needed because, despite the time rapidly running down again, Sandy managed to land the hit that saw him proceed to the semi-finals against Henry, another match that he won, within the time allowance, to secure his semi final match up against Dave. 

After a short break, the semi finals commenced, with Phil showing his next generation of family how it’s done and, in the process, letting Peter know that he is still the main man of the Hutchin’s household.  In the second semi-final, Dave’s measured approach proved no match for Sandy, who was playing mind games, trying to downplay his prowess with stories of being unfit post-holiday.  Would that mental gameplay wash with Phil in the final?

With the session nearly over Phil and Sandy took to the piste, complete with a full spectator quotient.  Three minutes were put on the clock, and the pen was ready to be spun for priority if a victor hadn’t been decided in the first three minutes.  And they were off…in contrast to the first time that we played this format (February), the fencers were far more reserved this time round, in their approaches.  Until…Sandy managed the hit that declared him the May Monthly Club Winner!  Well done, Sandy!   Well done to all those who competed and let’s hope we see all of you, and more, for the next club competition.  The next Monthly Club Competition will be held of the last Tuesday of June.