After the success of the Dawn till Dusk Challenge with our Judo Functional Movement event, we have once again taken another step forward, this time staging a head-to-head Inter Club Mixed Team Tournament.

Bristol-based Patchway Judo Club took on Kingsley School Judo Club, from Devon, on Saturday 27th February, over Zoom, in a creative and exciting format meaning that both club’s judoka could once again experience a competitive environment.

We were also incredibly grateful to Natasha Maslen who also acted as the referee counting the judoka repetitions in a mix of technical skills linked into judo fit exercises.

We split the judoka into school year groups rather than traditional weight categories, as well as having a mixed team, starting from the very youngest school pupils in Year 1 right through to Year 11 pupils.

It was marvelous to see the judoka have a goal to work towards once again. More importantly, the event provided great motivation for the teams to compete against another judoka once more. It certainly helped improved performances under the pressure of the challenge and it really proved just how important it is to stay consistent and maintain your focus.

I am so proud of both teams, especially the very youngest members who were representing Kingsley and Patchway for the very first time to the more experienced judoka from each team.

The first match was drawn with the Year 5 pupils getting the event started with Kingsley’s Kyra facing the challenge from Sid. Kyra scored 14 points to Sid’s 9 to give Kingsley the first win after match 1.

Patchway then took a 3-1 lead after wins from Franklin won his Year 1 head-to-head 14-10. Kingsley managed to pull the score back in match 7 with Max producing a solid performance to win his contest against Meg, 12-7, to pull the score back to 3-3.

By half-time Patchway had extended their lead over Kingsley to 8-5 with 3 back-to-back victories by their Year 6 judoka with victories from Alfie and Eloise, who both doubled up in some matches and really worked hard to support their team.

Kingsley responded strongly in the second half with Ocean starting with a 17–14 win against Oli in the Year 7 match-up. Caitlyn won her match with Alfie to give team Kingsley the lead, 9-8, before Patchway pulled it back to 9-9 with Stanley’s 17-15 win over Max in match 20.

Next up was Amie who produced the highest score of the day with 25 points to regain Kingsley’s lead prior to Alfie keeping the contest alive for Patchway to level it all up at 10-10.

This set up an unbelievable last match with Kingsley judoka Brodie taking on Patrick. Both boys delivered an outstanding effort with their squat thrust to uchi-mata technique with Patrick recording 17 repetitions in the 1-minute time limit, however, Brodie blasted out a score of 22 to give his team an overall 11-10 win.

During all 21 contests, Kingsley judoka produced 334 repetitions with Patchway scoring an equally outstanding 304 score. It really could not have been any closer at the end, the whole event was run with so much enthusiasm from both teams. It was great to hear the cheering again and watch both teams really get involved in the challenge.

I’m so proud of everyone, it was an amazing atmosphere on Zoom and I couldn’t have asked for any more effort from both teams. You are all simply amazing and you should all feel so proud of your determination and courage throughout the whole Lockdown period not only today.

Simon Ward