Three young fencers from Scarisbrick Swords fencing club have been awarded their Northwest colours and selected to fence for the region at the Cadet Winton Cup.
This competition is British Fencing’s annual inter-regional tournament, held just before Christmas down in Somerset. Annabelle Montagu (14), Sophia Neophytou (13) and Grace Michell (13) have been selected along with Lilly-Ann Grayson (15) from Formby to form the ladies U17 epee team. It is a tremendous recognition that they have been selected so young and the club is tremendously proud of all three girls’ achievements.
Annabelle has won this year’s ISA schools U15 national championships and finished 22nd at U15 in the English Youth Championships. In addition, She has been awarded a prestigious fencing scholarship from Millfield School where she is now a border.
Grace has for the second year running won the Northwest Junior Championships and finishing the season ranked 22nd in the English Youth Championships for U13.
Sophia has also enjoyed considerable success, competing in the Leon Paul Junior Series, winning several medals and finishing the series 9th nationally at U13. Sophia has also competed in her first international this year in Cyprus too.
Annabelle and Grace are returning to the Cadet Winton team after their surprise selections last year and now they will be joined by their teammate, as she makes her debut. The girls were awarded their colours at Scarisbrick Swords Christmas Awards night on Saturday, where they were joined by Lilly-Ann for the presentation. Lilly-Ann as the senior girl, will be the team captain. She is a successful pentathlete who trains for epee with Liverpool fencing club.
The girls would particularly like to thank David Stobbs the club’s head coach for his tireless work in honing their skills. It is a testament to David’s hard work with all the club’s young fencers that these three have achieved regional selection so soon in their fencing careers. Grace would also like to thank Nationwide Produce and the Benjamin Gautrey Foundation whose generous sponsorships have enabled her to pursue the national circuit.
Scarisbrick Swords is a not-for-profit community sports club governed by a constitution. It aims to promote the sport of fencing, particularly for young people, in Southport and the surrounding area and to use fencing to improve the health and well-being of all club members. The club is still very young, just completing it’s first year of full operation and although it has grown out of Scarisbrick Hall’s after school sports provision, it now has several children and adults who regularly take part from outside the school and it’s membership ranges from raw beginners to experienced fencers who regularly compete at national level.
The club meets on Thursday evenings at 7pm at Scarisbrick Hall and, if you would like to try out fencing for yourself, a taster session can be arranged by contacting them by email at paul@scarisbrickswords.co.uk, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ScarisbrickSwords, or on Twitter through @ScaSwords.
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