Private School News

The Public Schools’ Fencing Championships is the largest fencing competition in the country. This year’s event was held at the University of Nottingham Sports Centre on 19th March.

Caterham School was represented for the first time: in the Girls’ Senior Epée by Rebecca Michael (U6) and Elizabeth Hiscoke (U6) and in the Boys’ Senior Epée by Matthew Amlôt (L6). Both Rebecca and Elizabeth won two out of five bouts in their first round of poule fights, taking them through to the second round. Unfortunately neither managed to win any of their five bouts in this round and both were eliminated at this stage. Nevertheless Rebecca Michael had done enough to finish a creditable 21st out of a field of 33 with Elizabeth Hiscoke just trailing her in 22nd place.

In the Boys’ Senior Epée, Matthew Amlôt won all four of his first round of poule fights, scoring a maximum 20 points while conceding only 4. In a tough second round poule he won three out of four bouts, scoring 19 points and conceding 16. Following these two rounds of poules, Matthew was seeded 7th out of a field of 92 fencers. As a high seed, he received a ‘bye’, taking him automatically into the last 32. He then fought the 26th seed, C. Craven of Loughborough Grammar, winning 15-11. Into the last 16 Matthew faced 10th seed J. McNair of Eton College, beating him 15-6. Entering the final 8 and thus assured of a trophy, Matthew faced the 2nd seed, C. Sandford of City of London to whom he lost 8-15.

However, thanks to his high scoring through the day, Matthew finished the overall competition in fifth place – an impressive achievement in a field of 92 fencers which included several who had represented their countries in international competition.

Headmaster Julian Thomas said: ‘Whilst Caterham School has a reputation for high academic standards, we take the concept of all round ability very seriously. We view sport as an integral part of the personal development of each and every pupil. We added fencing as a co-curricular activity at the beginning of this academic year and so we are very pleased that Matthew did so well. This is most encouraging as our Girls U18 team won silver medals at the recent Open Fencing competition.‘