Judging the 2022 UK Fencing Competitions

With the borders finally opening, I could not get to the travel agent quick enough to book our yearly jaunt to Europe, which I must admit was a welcome relief after having our ‘wings clipped’ for three years.

Ngaire and I flew out on 19 July bound for London, Heathrow, where we were met by our daughter Marieke and her boyfriend Lewis. We all spent the next two days in Central Wales where we attended the last day of the Welsh Royal show. An absolute magic place with 60,000 people per day for four days.

We then all headed our separate ways with Marieke and Lewis training back to London and we caught up with friends before arriving in Malvern, a town of almost 30,000, situated between Birmingham and the Welsh Border.

It is here in Malvern, that they hold the biannual Three Counties Show Sheep Fest. It is a one-day show held during the week with a good display of fencing equipment and products. They have held a doubles fencing competition on site for 38 years which is organised and sponsored by Tornado Wire Ltd, who - much like our Cyclone or Eurocorp - are quite a big player in the UK, and further afield. Kenny Campbell is the Managing Director whom I have got to know quite well during my visits to England.

At one of our NZFC meetings, it was decided to arrange a reciprocating competitor exchange. Whilst in England at the 2018 Tornado competition, I had a meeting with Kenny Campbell and it was decided that at his next competition he would include in the prize package a trip for the winning team to compete at our Silver Spades competition, complete with rental car, upon which I agreed to reciprocate the offer on behalf of NZFC. Exciting news, which was interrupted by Covid, and after a three year ‘shelving’, we finally were able to proceed this year.

When Kenny contacted me earlier this year saying the competition was going ahead, I let him know I would be in the UK about the same time, so he asked if I would like to Judge. Historically the judging has always been done by Kenny and the previous winner. The previous competitor was now able to compete again.

The competition had 14 teams who had to erect a 70m fence with a diagonal stay one end, blocked end strainer and angle at the other end, plus posts at 5.0m spacing. They had to attach an eightwire netting with a bottom wire and two top barb wires. They had three hours to complete the fence.

Competitor briefing was at 9.30am with breakfast served by Tornado at 9.45am and a competition start at 10.30am. Prizegiving was at 3.00pm.

Judges evaluate the complete fence and the scores are averaged by the computer, which only gave us a 1.5 hour window of time to judge. The scoring is different to our way of judging. We have a demerit system, but at Tornado, the higher score wins. So me, having judged a lot in New Zealand, had to obviously reverse the scores.

The competition started on time with the usual noise of fossil fuelled equipment, with us Judges primarily keeping an eye on safety and fielding the odd media interview. The extremely hard ground certainly proved to be a challenge being at the height of summer and a known fill site. Competitors come armed with water containers and breakers.

The competitors were supplied with 100x100 random lengths of timber which they had to cut up for footing, breast and stay blocks, and were judged accordingly. Most blocked strainers and angles ended up leaning forward and stay blocks ranged from at ground level down to the required depth. The stay and wire work has certainly improved over the years which is always the result of competitions.

The first team finished collects 20 time points with one point per 5 minutes lost after the first team is finished. The team of Mark Evans and Nic Quan collected first prize of the Tornado Trophy and £1000.00 shared between them, plus of course the fully funded trip to our National Fieldays 2023.

I spoke to the winners and they are both elated about coming to New Zealand to compete, which we are now in discussions with Tornado regarding timing and logistics.

Article provided by: Nick Liefting Nick Liefting Contractors Ltd nlcontractors.co.nz