All previous club gallery’s and results can now be found on the archive page
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End of an era
Dear All
I would like to say thank you to all participants of the club who have
shared my experience as a member, team captain and president over the last
five years.
Thank you also to my committees, especially Tim who has been my
vice-president during the last two seasons.
I wish Mike and the incoming committee the best of luck for next year.
Best of luck in your exams!
Kind regards,
Pete Bond
President 2010-2012
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End of Year Meal 2012
The End of Year Meal and Presentation Evening will be held at Park Lodge Hotel on Saturday the 12th of May. Could all old boys please email their orders to club15 or alternatively use the online order form HERE and pay on the night. Current members can use email or the form but must pay in advance of the event to confirm their place. We hope to run a shuttle bus from Scholars to the hotel and people are also welcome to make their own way there. Tickets cost £23 per head. Dress code is black tie.
Universities of Wales Fencing Championships
A huge thank you to everyone who competed at this years Championships and to all those who helped over the weekend. The level of competition was very high indeed whilst the spirit of the event remained fun and entertaining. Thank you also to our sponsors and contributors: Leon Paul, Ffigar Embroidery, Lloyd’s Engravers , Aberystwyth Guild of Students and Varsity, Aberystwyth.
Full results are posted here.
Video’s ofthe finals will be posted shortly
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Dyfed County Closed and Excalibur 2012 selection
The Dyfed County Closed competition will be held at Aberystwyth this year on the 31st of March. Open to fencers who live and train Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.
Prizes awarded to top fencers for each weapon. The results and national rankings
will be used to select teams for Excalibur 2012
More information and entry forms can
be found HERE
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Universiity of Wales Fencing Championships
This year Aberystwyth are holding the Welsh University Championships.
The competition will be held on the 10th and 11th of March in the Sports Cage of Aberystwyth University on the Penglais campus.
You can find all the information you need HERE
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Congratulations to Lara Barrett, Heather Rogers and Harry Dunn for winning the elections and becoming our new social sec, women’s team captain and novice rep respectively
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Current committee for the coming academic year is as follows, elections for the role of Social Sec and Women’s 1st Team Captain will be held during the first few weeks of term.
President - Pete Bond
Vice President - Timothy Burgum
Treasurer - Ben Marriott
Men’s 1st Team Captain - Michael Jacob
Armourer - Killion McKenzie
Aber vs. Imperial 2nd (Home) Trophy Match
127-102
A strong victory against Imperial 2nd this week, with a win of 127-102.
Foil began with a not so impressive start as per usual but in our defence imperial fencing appeared to have so many good fencers that they put striped fencers on their 2nd team, leading to a narrow loss of 37-45 after an impressive pull back by Tim Burgum just before the end. This foil result was irrelevant when the Aber tradition of being a sabre university pulled through beating their sabre team a good 45-22 with Pete
Bond getting a plus 11 indicator which would have made him an impressive sabreur, if he didn’t get carded for crossing his legs. A neat little finish for epee, winning 45- 35, with me scoring the winning hit on their team captain’s wrist; however he had a very respectful finish to the match which none of his team watched...
It was a good match with a friendly team who took it in good spirits leaving us to go on to the quarter finals against Swansea in February. Dick of the Day goes to Pete Bond for his yellow card and Man of the Match goes to Tim Burgum for his impressive bout in the penultimate foil bout 10-3. Also in an attempt to motivate my team I tried to say something reinforcing and constructive and all that came out was “Okay our aim is to score more points than them”.
Man of the Match: Tim Burgum
Dick of the Day: Pete Bond
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Swansea vs. Aber (Away)
114-120
Another narrow defeat for Aber men’s against Swansea with an incredibly
close match that came down to the very last bout; with the final score
being 120-114 to Swansea.
We began with foil, which is not our best weapon, and it didn’t help that their team as so many others are strong at foil; as a result of this we were beaten 45-30 to Swansea.
Sabre was next, again not our strongest weapon, but due to a new found love to this weapon I managed to hold the team and give us an ending result of 39-45 to Swansea.
As we entered into epee we feared that we had lost the match as we needed to beat Swansea by 45-23 to win, however what we neglected to realise was that Swansea’s epee team relies on one fencer to get them all the points. It came down to the very last bout where our closer needed to beat theirs by 5 hits to 1 however this didn’t happen and Swansea scrapped through. Dick of the Day goes again to Tim Burgum for his 3rd time crossing of the legs in sabre earning him a yellow card. Man of the Match goes to Pete Bond for getting 5-0 against their captain.
Man of the Match: Pete Bond
Dick of the Day: Tim Burgum
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Bangor vs. Aber (Away)
92-135
A great score against our uni rivals this Wednesday gone, getting a clear
victory for our first trophy match. To start with we were lacking in foil
until a group effort flipped the score half way winning us the first match
45-37. Next came the sabre, which was interesting enough due to the fact
that none of the fencers were sabreurs, however we wouldn’t let that stop
us, getting a winning result of 45-29. After that we thought we’d wrap
things up with a bit of epee, getting again a clean victory of 45-26.
Overall it was a good match with the only complication being the slow
start in foil. Man of the Match went to Pete Bond for his impressive
indicators in all 3 weapons; Dick of the Day goes also to Pete Bond for
arguing until he received Man of the Match.
Man of the Match: Pete Bond
Dick of the Day: Pete Bond
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Aber vs. Bristol 2nd
135-89
A very embarrassing start to this week’s match; due to not having enough
functioning spools to host two matches delaying us by an hour then causing
further complications later on. However, this fear that we may have lost
by default drove the men’s team to an impressive victory, making it the
first win of the league year, of 135-89. We began with sabre where we
maintained a lead for the most part throughout the match. Although, on
Killion’s request I decided not to put our only sabreur on for closing for
some reason, regardless we won sabre 45-34. Foil was on next where we won
a lovely 45-21 with a great group effort setting us up to get 10 more
points to win. Bristol 2nd did an impressive job in epee making us work
for the points but we did come through and beat them 45-34. Everyone in
the team did a great job all getting positive indicators; Man of the Match
goes to Pete Bond for an all-round good job in all 3 weapons while Dick of
the Day goes to the kit and therefore our armourer Killion McKenzie.
Man of the Match: Pete Bond
Dick of the Day: Killion McKenzie
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Aber vs. Bath (Home)
93-135
A rather disappointing but inevitable defeat against Bath at home this
week, Aber fielding a team of four against the national striped team that
Bath sent. Sabre beginning with a tragic 20-45 with our own Tim Burgum
flying through with a sabre fleche (apologizing as he went) earning him a
warning and Dick of the Day. Luckily a decent recovery was made in foil
with an ending score of 40-45 to Bath, making them work for the points
especially by Jarred who managed to rake back many points in one
particular bought winning him Man of the Match for the 2nd week running.
In epee we managed to hold our own until Bath finally pushed ahead leaving
the match at 33-45 to Bath. Over all the Aber team fenced well but Bath
did have a more experienced team in the end.
Next week however we take on our Varsity rivals Bangor for the first
knockout of the season for the Trophy, it’ll be a close one but we’ll
make sure we send our best team up to North Wales to get that little
closer to the finals.
Man of the Match: Jarred Mittleholzer
Dick of the Day: Tim Burgum
Mike.
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Exeter vs. Aber (Away)
120-112
A narrow loss to the Aber men’s team losing by only 8 points over all.
However considering that we sent a team of 3 weapon all-stars and Exeter
were fielding an entire team at home I feel that we did a very good job!
The match begun with sabre where we kept it fairly balanced until the
Exeter sabre closer got 2 points ahead finishing the match at 43-45.
Then came the foil where I feel it’s safe to say we weren’t at our best;
although good hits were made we still came out of it 24-45 to Exeter.
However in honour of last year’s triumphs over Exeter we couldn’t let them
get away with an all out win. Jarred gave us a good head start with the
epee points keeping us a good 15 points or more ahead throughout the match
winning him the Man of the Match, leaving Pete to make a tidy clean up at
the end against their captain at the score of 45-30. Good match over all
making sure we didn’t get too setback for the rest of the league. Also
most importantly Dick of the Day going to myself, for leading the Aber
mini bus up a bus lane and through Exeter high street at lunch time.
Man of the Match: Jarred Mittelholzer
Dick of the Day: Michael Jacob (Captain)
Mike Jacob - Captain
25th January
Away Match against Cardiff
Lost 73-135
Admittedly we were expecting a defeat after the crushing defeat Cardiff
gave us earlier in the year but it was still disappointing to loose.
We started with Sabre so that one of the Cardiff team could run off to an
exam, it was a slow start but we were snapping at their heels and after
gaining 11 points, and only giving away 4, in my second bout we pulled
level and then ahead. The momentum was short lived though as the following
bouts went 6-0, 5-0 to Cardiff, but the team’s spirits was high and the
enthusiasm and enjoyment gained by all was clear to see. We then moved
onto foil, a weapon that we knew we were lacking experience and practice
at since none of us are foil specialists, and unfortunately only just
managed to scrape 13 points – but against 2 foil specialists and a striped
Cardiff team it was inevitable. In order to get the team energy going
again I set point boundaries with a reward for when we reached them –
these all involved food from McDonalds!!! It’s amazing how the promise of
food changed the mood – suddenly the match went from being lost to a
challenge for spending more of my (non-existent) money. I must do that
more often because the team pulled off a decent 33-45 loss on epee!
Man of the match (this was voted for by the team because I personally
couldn’t decide) goes to myself as the team decided the food motivation
and the fact I had the best indicator overall of -7 (+2 in sabre)
Quote of the day “6 more points until Heather buys fries!” – It became our
mantra the moment the food motivation was suggested!
Heather Rogers (women's captain)
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Swansea - Away
Win - 132-106
Our first win of the year, well done girls! Again it was another team of 3 but high spirits carried us through and although we lost foil by just 3 points, our more experienced sabre put us ahead with everyone getting excellent scores. Epee, like foil, was a close run affair but personally I think they made a bad choice in their running order and they didn’t put their strongest player last which allowed us to clinch the narrow victory after some very close bouts, giving us the overall win on points and weapon wins.
Since I don’t have a quote of the day (we didn’t really speak it was more shouting and praising as the adrenaline built up as the win got closer) I’m going to do resort to the dick of the day award giving it to Octavia Wylie as she managed to get herself a yellow card for starting before the refs commands and for jumping in front of my photo of Tesco on the way back – In my defence I now haven’t seen a Tesco for 3 months, it was almost like arriving back into civilisation (only I knew I was in Swansea and no way can Swansea be classed as civilisation!)
Man of the match goes to Clare Winton with the highest overall indicator of +16
Dick of the day – Octavia Wylie
Heather Rogers (women’s captain)
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Bristol - Home
Lost 77-135
Yet another loss for the women's team. For the first time we had more than 3 fencers on the team so there was a little flexibility on which weapon everyone fenced.
We started with foil, with Caz doing a sterling job with keeping us in the match - an impressive +13 indicator score! Yet we soon fell behind after a few poor performances. Sabre was once again our strongest weapon which continues to surprise me since we are lacking in advanced experienced fencers, and once again ended doing a crash course just before the match started. Caz fenced sabre like a foilest (understandably) but still managed some impressive points, Clare did her usual brilliant performance and Octavia hung in there keeping on track. Epee ... This should have technically been our strongest weapon but once again it was another adequate (but nothing special) performance - something to do with the fact that epee is generally a strong weapon no matter which women team you face.
Man of the match goes to Caz Benson for doing all 3 weapons and pulling off some impressive victories.
Quote of the day (well actually I have 3 don't know which is my favourite)
"Only 20 more to go Caz!" Screamed by Octavia Wylie during the final foil bout! Her endless optimism and quotes keep the team going no matter what!
Heather Rogers (women's captain)
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Cardiff v Aber (away)
Lost 135-28
A disappointing yet inevitable loss to Cardiff. We knew from the beginning that we didn’t stand a chance in our trophy knockout match after having problems pulling together a team, with it being close to a few too many deadlines for all of the advanced fencers. Moral was low after a difficult journey (shared with the netball 3rd who kept sending us down the wrong road) in heavy rain. Man of the match was voted for unanimously and given to Noemi who is a complete novice but agreed last minute to join the team to prevent of us from having to forfeit the match! Considering she has only done 3 complete training sessions and under half an hour one-on-one session with me just before the match in order to briefly explain rules, and the other two weapons she did a sterling job against a striped team!
The mood of the team shows through the quote of the day “the reason we have no revolutions in the UK is because it’s always raining” – thanks Octavia – revolutions and rain need I say more!
Heather Rogers (Captain)
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Aber vs. Bath (home)
Loss 114-135
Close run match starting with foil, then sabre then epee. Both team’s wielded just 3 fencers so we all fenced each other with our strongest and weakest weapons, we were evenly matched meaning it was a fight down to the last point!
The Aber girls pulled ahead at the very start of foil with 4 consecutive
bout wins with Bath snapping at our heels. Foil was our weakest weapon
and we soon lost our winning streak when the Bath girls recovered from
their long journey. Throughout the match the teams were exchanging the
lead – anyone could have won it. Sabre was our closest weapon with the
Aber girls losing by 4 points, Clare kept us close to victory with an
impressive indicator of +9. The final weapon, epee, definitely took the
longest time with all the bouts going over the 2 minute mark, a
narrow loss with 6 points deciding the outcome.
Women of the match goes to Clare Winton because of her impressive +11
indicator overall.
Quote of the day has to go to Octavia Wylie after she randomly said “if we
were ahead you would have won that” after I came off piste with a bout
draw.
Heather Rogers (captain)
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Aber vs. Exeter (away)
Loss 66-135
A heavy defeat for the first match of the season but everyone performed
well under pressure. With only 3 women fencers able to attend, everyone
fenced foil, sabre and epee respectively. Exeter showed a full team so the
Aber girls had to be up to it. After 5 hours travel and the fresh legs on the
opponents we were in for a tough ride! Everyone performed well and the team spirit remained high even after I managed to injure myself (turns out I fractured a knee cap!)
Man of the match (well women really) goes to Octavia Wylie for her consistent point scoring and boundless energy.
Heather Rogers (captain)
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