Second, winner, third;
Paul, Sandy, Peter
After a quiet start to numbers, for the evening, possibly caused by way of holidays, half term across the schools and bad traffic at both the Dartford Tunnel and the A2/M2, numbers finally picked up to ten people and it was decided to go ahead with the competition, using a poule unique. Everybody would fight everybody else and, latecomers could easily be added later on. Each bout was the first to three hits or two minutes, whichever came first. We slowly but surely made our way through the night, even though Paul wanted to ‘crack on’ at a much quicker pace, even though the scorer was concerned for his welfare, having had three weeks away, one of which was a gluttonous holiday! I think he was thankful for the scorer’s empathy!
Sandy took an early lead winning his matches, but was foiled in the clean sweep by Paul. As the evening wore on, Sandy was keen to keep an eye on Paul’s progress, only to find that he had been thwarted in his attempts to victory by both Steve and Ellora. The quiet assassin of the group is always Peter and, he proved once again to be deadly, tying with Paul on seven wins apiece, but only losing out on a joint second on countback, having been beaten by Paul in their duel.
Other fencers quietly going about their matches were both Mark and Claudia, who managed a very respectable four wins apiece, but with Claudia claiming the fourth spot by way of countback. Then, the rest of the pack were too close to call. Steve, Ellora and newcomer Tom were all tied in 6th place, with three wins apiece and not even countback able to separate them as Steve had beaten Ellora; Ellora had beaten Tom and Tom had beaten Steve! Although, Steve could be well within his rights to claim some sympathy, given that his sword broke in one of his early fights and he was duelling with an unfamiliar sword.
Then bringing up the rear were latecomer Torran with two wins and ninth place and finally Jake, with one win and tenth place. It was not Jake’s night either in the sword stakes. Initially, his sword had a screw problem, meaning that he spent most matches trying to fence with a loose handle before eventually giving up and using Claudia’s sword – something he was clearly not happy about (and even now I’m sure Claudia gave him one of her less stable swords to gain an advantage!).
All in all, there were some good shots and the newcomers of Tom and Torran showed that they too can fight with the best of them. Well done to everybody on the night and we look forward to what Mark has in store for the November competition.
A particular well done to our winner Sandy – no trophy photo because Mark brought the wrong bag – but we did manage to get a handsome picture of our top three; Paul, Sandy and Peter. Well done everybody and congratulations to Sandy!
Sandy just after telling Paul that he ‘let’ Paul win their bout, otherwise he’d have had a clean sweep…