It was a very busy and successful weekend for Ford Judo Club, with 3 competitions being contested by the club. The UK School Games were being held in Swansea and Chloe Jackson -52kg weight division was fighting for England while Tom Williams was competing in the -81kg division. Tom had the privilege of being captain of the boys team, an honour he relished. Tom narrowly missed out last year winning a Silver medal in the final, he made sure that was not going to happen again and went on to win the final bout for gold medal position.
Chloe Jackson was a bronze medal winner, losing out to another English girl in the dying seconds of the bout, a lack of concentration let her opponent in to make a minor score but was enough to prevent Chloe going through to the final, but a good performance was given by Chloe throughout the day.
Trials were held at the High Wycombe judo centre Saturday, with 6 players competing for a place in the National Championships to be held at the EIS Sheffield in early October. With some strong performances from Richard Jackson and Matthew Kavanagh who were both on top form. Tom Williams and Chloe Jackson, both got automatic entry as they were representing their country when the trials were being fought.
Danny Irving, Charlie Jackson, Brandon Tutthill and Kelly Staddon all won their place to compete in the national championship.
The busy schedule continued as the club members travelled to Birmingham to compete in the Heart of England Championships at the NIA. This is a huge competition and is a point scoring event for the National squads of the home countries and a forerunner to the national championships. The morning had Julianne Florey competing in the senior section +78kg. Julianne was carrying a wrist injury which prevented her giving the performance she was capable of but fought hard. The young 12-13 year olds see Sarah Allen, Danny Irving and Charlie Jackson competing. This was to be Sarah's first major competition and although nerves created some minor mistakes fought extremely well. As did Danny Irving, despite picking up a large bump on his cheek bone Danny fought well, building on his performance from the previous day.
Richard Jackson started well competing in the 15-16 year old section, winning his first 2 fights and was looking sharp but failed to find his for his next 2 fights but produced a 7th place. Kelly Staddon -48kg, was looking strong, and was controlling her fights extremely well in the 15 to 16 year old section, winning her first 3 fights to get to the final, Kelly was the younger of the 2 players and a small mistake was enough to let her opponent in to win the fight, but it was a well earned Silver for Kelly.
The 2 remaining players were fighting in the same age band, Brandon Tutthill was on supreme form competing in the -50kg division. He displayed a wide and varied array of techniques to take apart his opponents, a very good days work for Brandon taking gold.
Matthew Kavanagh to displayed a peak performance, -66kg. The work the players strength and conditioning coach, Carly Green of The David Lloyd centre has been doing with the players really showed as Matthew dominated all 5 of his opponents, Matthew threw all for the maximum 10 points in each of his fights, the equivalent to a knockout in boxing, he too won Gold.
All in all it was a good performance from the Ford Judo Club Players that are based at Bretons Farm, Upper Rainham Road, and the mistakes made will hopefully be ironed out for the National Championships in October.
Bill...
