Category: General News

The eyes of the sporting world were on Blackheath this weekend as we reignited South London’s hottest rivalry.

We were delighted to welcome our friends from Kingstonfencing back to Blackheath for a three weapon team match.

It couldn’t have been closer as Blackheath lost by the tightest of margins – 119 to 120!

A great result for the club against an incredibly experienced Kingston team. Well done to everybody involved who fenced amazingly.

And thank you to our friends from Kingston, we can’t wait to see you again.

Luke, Jeff, and Henry were in Sheffield on 19th April representing us at the British Senior National Championships

They did the club proud with Jeff and Luke finishing 38th and 40th in Sabre, while Henry ranked 37th in Epee and all picking up some good ranking points.

Click the post title, above, to see the following videos

Jeff (back to camera) wielding his sabre

Henry getting an epee double hit

Several of us fenced at the Vets (Veterans, over 40) Age Groups competition in Nottingham today (March, 22nd). In the foil Mark came in 4th out of 10 in his age group and Frank and Cos both fenced really well (to my untrained eye) but lost in tight bouts in the 16s, with Frank finishing 10th and Cos 12th out of 23 in their age group!

Meanwhile an amazing result from Jeff, winning the British Vets Age Group Sabre Championship!

The Annual Club Championships continued on 18th March with the Men’s Epee event.

Just managing to squeeze it into one session with the blessing of our Caretaker!

Congratulations to Gully on a 3rd straight year as club épée champion! 🏆 🥇
Christian finished in 2nd 🥈
Henry and Alex R took the bronzes 🥉

Click images for a bigger pic

Using a new pool and DEs structure to give everyone lots of fencing and excitement our new Club Foil Champions are
Mark Sutton Gold
Gully Jagdev Silver
Henry Fazakerley and Khurshid Khan Bronzes
(Click for larger picture)

For the last week before the October 23 half term we held a 1 hit épée competition – “King Épée” on Tuesday and a series of team matches on Thursday.

The 1 hit competition had plenty of upsets amongst the 17 entrants during a fast paced format. The top 4 from each poule then faced off in a high jeopardy DE bracket. Congrats to Henry for emerging as the winner in the final!

On Thursday we put together teams for 2 foil matches and an épée match. There were lots of great bouts and performances including a close 45-44 finish in the épée!

HEMA is Historic European Martial Arts. There are HEMA clubs all over the country but we have one in New Cross. Some of their members have attended the Club for Olympic Fencing training. Now we are invited to go to one of their sessions. See the latest Club Newsletter for details. Parents of Musketeers are invited too!

More about HEMA here

Morley sent in two brigades one of foil and one of épée to battle with Blackheath. Morley’s Liva, Holly and Simon were met by Amanda, Rob and Cadet Sandesh in a close battle of the foils. Blackheath surged ahead but was caught up by Morley by the 4th bout. The heavy brigade took Blackheath back into a lead that was slowly whittled away leaving Blackheath floundering for a while until a final heavy assault brought Blackheath victory by one point 34/42 after running out of time.

Morley’s Épée brigade of Jade, Tom, Gareth with Derek in reserve then came face to face with Blackheath’s Henry, James and Mael with Gurlal in reserve. Blackheath’s heavy brigade led the way from the start at one stage being 12 points ahead. Whilst the Blackheath reserve extended their lead, Morleys’ reserve was held in check but Morley recovered a little towards the end to leave Blackheath with a 45/35 victory.

With the conclusion of this successful series of inter club competitions there is enthusiasm to establish a three way triangle competition next season that might bring Morley face to face with Gravesham for the first time.

Following Blackheath’s successful assault on Gravesham a few weeks earlier, Gravesham invaded London territory on 7th May seeking revenge.

The anticipated battle was on an ominously cloudy day here in Blackheath.

Laura, Henry and newly crowned epée club champion, James, took on the Gravesham A team. There was a choppy start for Blackheath where they were trailing by 6 points. A strong resurgence took place leading to one of the best final bouts we’ve ever seen. With a great tee up by Henry securing 6 points, James thrashed out another 8 points to secure another nail-biting victory for Blackheath 45-44.

Lorna, Gianluca and Douglas, our newest addition who’s come through the Musketeers programme, took on Gravesham B. Blackheath took an early lead but Gravesham fought back. The lead changed hands at least 4 times!  Unfortunately, Blackheath B were unable to secure a victory this time around and were beaten by the Gravesham opposition (43-45).

Normally we would invite our counterparts out for a beverage after the match. Unfortunately, being election day, we had to leave early to casteth our votes.