Christpherson-Holdsworth 5 Weapon Open (Durham University 14th March 1999)

Portsmouth Team:
Chris (Men's Foil & Sabre, President, Driver)
Stig (Men's Sabre & Epee, Navigator)
Donna (Women's Epee and chocolate-button lover)
Duncan (Men's Epee and Foil)
Jo (Women's Foil and chocolate-button loving Foghorn)

Okay, Durham is about 350 miles from Portsmouth… and this is where we decide to go and "have a laugh and do some fencing now we've finished the BUSA matches"?!?. Insane, us? We left Portsmouth at about ½ past 4 in our T-reg A -Team van, remembered to pick Donna up from the Portsmouth Open (congratulations on coming third, Donna) and attempted to make it up north before last orders. Mission accomplished although I now know the words to Brittany Spears "Baby One More Time..." and without getting lost once (a new experience for us), unless you count Chris' problem with petrol stations: especially the incident where we circled one three times before stopping at a pump with a nozzle that was "too big and I can't get it in" - ooo-errr!. Scruffy Murphy's is a damn fine place… nice fairly cheap beer and they do top notch fried breakfasts!!

Sunday morning and our navigation skills were still working as we found the sports hall first time. Walk in and it dawns on us that we're the only team from anywhere south of Sheffield. All the others fence each other in their BUSA division, so we're an unknown quantity.

The first round was split into pools, which saw us up against Hull 1 & 2 and Leeds. Both Hull teams were soundly beaten, with solid performances from all the team making us 2-0 in our pool. The clincher was a tight match against Leeds, which saw a brilliant display of epee by Donna who clawed back 17 points for us, which Chris then made into a 25-24 win. So far so good, and Portsmouth pride is still intact. Our solid performance gave us a bye into the last 8 where we met Hull 2 again, which would've been fine if the organisers hadn't changed the weapon order on us. Stig did really well with the epee, having never even picked one up before, let alone fenced with it, Duncan swapped epee for foil and Chris was now doing sabre. Even with this change we beat Hull for the second time - maybe we ought to take this seriously, coz now we're in the last 4.

Right, semi final, and guess who we're up against: Leeds, who are now out for revenge for their first round defeat (a bit personal this one coz Jo knows the Leeds captain, Tim). This too was a very closely fought match going right down to the final point, which we unfortunately lost 22-25, as Leeds celebrated with and impressive cry of "Eeeeextrodinary" (David Coleman style?!?). Still, joint third is pretty good considering we never expected to get past the first round, and the other third place team, Salle Jakab are coached by a world and Olympic standard coach.

BIG thanks to everyone who took part, and well done!

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