Competition at Shrewsbury School, Saturday 5 March 2011

Feb 2020. A visit to Newcastle Fencing Club last week gave me a very intense evening on the piste (that’s Newcy On Tyne).
I’d emailed the club coach, Iain Aberdeen, ahead of our trip to the Frozen North to see our daughter - recently relocated there. Iain made me welcome on the Thursday evening – Epee Night. The “Fencing Centre” is in an unusual location – a large industrial unit on a trading estate, but it's an ideal space for their 8 permanent metal pistes, with reels built into the floor. It’s the main Epee training facility for British Fencing Team GB in the North and Scotland – so little wonder almost everyone there on the night was wearing ‘GB’ apparel. This is a big club – over 60 registered members and over 30 there on the night I attended.
Iain's format is half–an-hour of very hi-tempo drill, in full kit, followed by one big Poole match – where everyone fences everyone, regardless of age, gender, or level. Iain vigilantly patrols and is ready to give tactical advice and ensure fair play.
I think I did okay .... I won 9 of my 12 pool matches (each to 5 points). Then, a final hour of free fencing, and for me, not a second’s rest between invites ....all the senior fencers very eager to ‘grab the newbie’.
So overall, friendly, competitive... and a very intensive session. I’ll certainly go again. Next time I’ll probably go for their Monday evening session, which is Foil and Sabre. They also hold juniors and special coaching on Saturdays.
But 'oh', the following day...I ached all over ! That's the price to be paid for upholding the honour of Stone Fencing Club. The purpose of our trip was to give our daughter a hand with the decorating, but sadly, there was a lot more sitting than sanding.
Paul Smythe

2020 Epee Success

Another competition success for one of our young fencers - Aldan Tai took third place at the British Youth Championship Qualifiers on Sun 26th Jan. The event was held at Packwood Haugh School, Shrewsbury. Aldan competed in Epee, in the U 16yr group - a field of 20 fencers. These are among the best youth fencers in the region. All those finishing in the top 8 have a guaranteed opportunity to represent the West Midlands region at the National Finals of the British Youth Championship (BYC) in May 2020.

Christmas Party 2019

The Club’s Christmas Party was a great hoot again this year – held at the Duke of York PH in Barlaston. Our old friends Fred and Leslie kindly came back from their new retirement home in Wales to host the games and the competitions. Great also to see old friends Ivan and all the loyal partners of fencing club members. Normally, each Wednesday, club members step out into the evening air to “go fencing” but sometimes return with mysterious deep yellow and black body markings. Which must prompt partners to wonder at times, what their other half is really up to on a Wednesday evening. So the Christmas party is a good way to reassure partners that it’s all totally innocent – if you don’t count the mental bruises inflicted by the pub quiz.

In any pub quiz you would be forgiven for guessing that Vasco da Gama was the first sailor to circumnavigate the globe when in fact, as Fred revealed, it was Ferdinand Magellan. Doh ! But can you really be forgiven for not knowing the correct order of traffic lights ? You’ve sat waiting for them to change a ‘million’ times but Fred’s questions are there to remind you haven’t learned anything new since you took your O-levels.

The bountiful supper of sausages, chips, onions and buttered bread was the best ever – especially good for healing the wounds of so many disappointed Quoits players earlier. Quoits must be the devil’s own way of reminding players that the laws of physics don’t work for you. The winning score was steadily building, initially from just over 100 to well over 300 - the eventual winner being lovely Leah – our pub landlady. Leah would have achieved superhero status just for the supper alone – but then she promptly donated the Quoits prize money back to the club ! Outstanding.

It was an easy choice to award Brian the clubman of the year trophy. His dedication to coaching both newcomers and experienced fencers is the beating heart of our club. Ken’s remarks amplified the breadth of contribution that Brian makes to our understanding of the modern laws of fencing – and given Ken’s coaching success this year that’s true praise.

We will miss Dan for the foreseeable future as he departs for a gap year, or more, in New Zealand. We hope that along with trying the extreme sports famously taken up there he will get a chance to fence at some of the big city clubs. Dan – if you’re reading this don’t forget to post back some pics for our website.

Thanks again to Fred for hosting another excellent bash – and hope you can continue fencing near your new home town.

Look forward to seeing you all in the New Year – we’re back on Wed 8th Jan 2020.

Our star young fencer Gianna won the silver medal place at a prestigious regional fencing competition – the CocksMoors Woods Epee Championships. Gianna travelled to the competition in South Birmingham with her Dad, early on Sat 9th Nov 2019. Gianna competed in the U9’s Epee competition and got through four tough rounds of pool matches to find herself in the final. Her dad said afterwards “this is her first Epee competition – what a result ! We’re all so pleased”.
The sweet taste of success. Well done Gianna.

Mrs Denny Shortland (pictured) retired recently and will be known to many throughout Staffordshire as a champion of community and schools sports, as well as a fencing coach in local Schools and Universities. Denny is a fine Epeeist and contacted the club in early Nov to say she would kindly donate all her equipment – and will occasionally come and fence with us on a Wednesday evening to keep her hand in.

The equipment may be a few years old but is in pristine condition – all protective clothing washed, masks scrubbed and swords restored. So if you fancy trying fencing for the first time now is the ideal opportunity. There’s a good chance we can fit you out with the right size and ‘hand’ of kit – just turn up in grippy trainers, stretchy bottoms and a bottle of water.
Many thanks Denny.

The broadcast went out on the following Frid night show - between 7 and 8pm, and again on Sat 26th at 7:45am. Its the first time that Fencing has featured on the show. Stone Fencing Club are the premier club in the Stoke and Staffordshire area so Robin's visit was a great oportunity to introduce our new club setting to the local radio audience.
If you want to catch the programme here's how you can hear it;
Tune to 94.6 FM and 104.1 FM and on DAB digital.
There’s a listen again feature for past programmes on the ‘BBC Sounds’ app (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds)
The Extra Time programme website is:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nwcqg

Competition at Shrewsbury School, Saturday 5 March 2011

Posted by Katey Goodwin on Thursday, March 10, 2011 Under: Competitions with other clubs

Thanks to Fred for the following report:

"We travelled to Shrewsbury on a very pleasant Saturday. We had hoped for better numbers, but we arrived with five fencers.

Having had discussions we decided that we would fence epee and foil. Time constraints would be affected by virtue that there would need to be the same people fencing in both disciplines, so we would run a four-man epee team and a three-man foil team.

Epee was first to go. Our team was Craig (capt), Dave, Martin and Fred. The side against us was a lively mix of talent from the school and surrounding clubs.

The home team took an early lead, taking matches against Fred, and surprisingly, Dave’s first match, however a quick bit of coaching from Craig stopped the style of ‘leading with the head’ and Martin took command and showed the way, very ably followed by Craig who then won all his matches. Dave’s performance with the epee was excellent and gave rise to the quip of the day…comment from the home team member… “you know I could see that move of yours coming every time” to which Dave’s reply was “yes, but could you stop it?!”

We won 12 matches to 4.

Next up was the foil, our team was Dave, Craig and Jon Paul (who had been softening up the home side’s foil team!). It was a very impressive team that they put against us, well coached and rehearsed. Their “star fencer” was an under 18 Welsh International who was both talented and an extremely pleasant young man.

As before, there were unfortunately some time constraints which meant that the matches would be of 2 minute duration. They went on to beat us 44 - 39 (running out of time). Star performances by Dave who scored 9 points in quick succession to keep us in the hunt and an overall personal victory to Craig where he beat the Welsh International fencer in the last match 5 – 4.

All in all a super day."

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