North Britain Team - Veterans Winton Cup – 24/25th September 2016 Captain’s Report Well we did it!!!!  Against all odds and after seven long years of clutching the wooden spoon, this year, the amazing Team from North Britain, rose to the dizzy heights of third place! In addition, one of our Team, Sheila Anderson, won the Frank Mills Trophy.  This Trophy presented in memory of our late Chair of BVF and organiser of the Vets Winton Cup, was introduced this year for the first time and is presented to the highest performing Woman Foilist over the whole competition!!!! Congratulations Sheila! Once again sincere congratulations and thanks to the organisers lead by Marcia Stretch, John Crouch and John Mason; the armourers, Janet and Peter Huggins and the Winton Cup Dinner organiser and photographer, Gillian Aghajan. As always the whole weekend ran like clockwork, no mean feat as we now have 10 regional teams and well over 200 fencers! As unofficial Team Manager an ENORMOUS thank you to all of you for giving up your weekend and travelling down to Shropshire from as far afield as the Highlands and Islands!  Then, once arrived, pitching in and fencing your hearts out!  Every single fight was important and by Sunday morning when the first green V's started to appear it suddenly became excitingly obvious that the North Britain teams had had a fantastic weekend!!!!!!! This year we had full or viable teams in 5 of the 6 weapons, and in several of the teams we had at least one fencer selected for the GB team for the World Championships to be held next week in Stralsund, Germany. This year, for the very first time we were delighted to field a team of three experienced Women Foilists lead by Sheila Anderson. They were a huge asset to the team overall and won well over half of their matches. WF team were Sheila Anderson, Maria Cabrelli and Helen Pitt. With regard to the Mens Foil results, Mike Mcewan wrote “ I think we had best consign Saturday to history (5 lost out of 5) but mark Sunday as the day we woke up and remembered what we were meant to do  (3 wins out of 4)!”. Another great contribution from the team of David Hanley, Mike Mcewan and Kev Milne. David and Kev were recruited to the North Britain team by Mike at very short notice and we thank them. Another important run of victories (7out of 9 matches) were contributed by the Mens Sabre Team. Chris Cranston-Selby, Keith Davidson, Richard Howard and Winton Cup first timer , Duncan Rowlands, Alll had a very good day in the office! A big "shout out" goes to Lorna Smith who became our sole Woman Sabreur following Beth Davidson's horrendous ankle injury during her second fight of the competition!  Terrible bad luck for Beth and we all hope she will make a full and Speedy recovery!  In the meantime well done Lorna for battling on alone and even winning a match over another region who also had only one team member! Three of the four Mens Epee team will fence in Stralsund next week so came into the competition with a great expectations which were not disappointed! They won 8 out of their 9 matches and went down only to the team from the South West! Don’t worry Boys! There’s always next year The team members were Hugh Kernahan, Anton Pollard, Paul Sutherland and Alister Urquhart (plus team mascot and gopher Dianne!) As part of the Womens Epee team I am delighted to report we won 7 out of 9 matches beaten only by Eastern (the "new" Winton Cup region) and by the South East  - their Epee girls were on fire and the whole team went on to unseat the South West from the top slot which they had occupied ever since the Vets Winton began! At least three of our matches we won in extra time!!!!!!! Real knife edge stuff!  We were all so happy! The “we” in this case being Karen Grant, Maggie Tait (from Orkney!) and myself. Overall, as always, the Winton Cup was very hard work; this year more highs than lows, and, as far as the North Britain team were concerned, a very successful and enjoyable weekend! As always too there was much fun and laughter and for those of us who attended the Winton Cup Dinner even some wins on the raffle! I look forward to welcoming you all back to the North Britain team next year!!!! Kind regards and many thanks to all Carole Seheult, Team Manager [caption id="attachment_1381" align="alignnone" width="960"] Mens Sabre Team[/caption]