South Brent Judo Club, along with Kingsley, Drake, Torbay and Plymouth Judo Club, represented Devon at the annual western area team competition in Weston-super-Mare on Sunday, October 16.

The regions fought hard for the title of best in the west. As usual SBJC was well represented in all age groups. Gary Gregory and Pete Whitfield coached the Devon teams to victory and Ewan Baker refereed for the first time as an area referee.

The A band team (under 12’s) put in a very strong performance, beating Bristol in their first contest 8-1, with wins for Jamie Shipp, Maddox Callard and sisters Lara, Kiya and Zoe Butler.

This was followed by an 8-0 win over Som­erset and a win for Zoe. They finished with a 6-2 win over a strong Glouces­ter team, with a win for Kiya and Zoe to take a well-deserv­ed gold.

For many of the players it was their first time representing Devon and they wore the coveted Devon badge with pride.

The pre cadet and cadet boys team were the pre-event favour­ites, fielding a team of which the vast majority were England squad players, and they didn’t disappoint.

They won their first match against Glouces­ter 5-2, with wins for Josh Shipp, Adam Vos­per, Kolya Schwinge, Adam Whitfield and Lewis Widdicombe.

In their second match they convincingly beat Wiltshire 6-1, with wins for Josh, Adam, Pierre Michelin and Lewis.

Their final match was against Bristol, where the lads again showed their class, again winning 6-1, with wins for Josh, Adam, Kolya, Adam and Lewis, to also claim the gold.

The senior men’s team also contested their opening match against Gloucester, which went down to the final fight, and a 3-2 win for Devon, with Tom Ingram winning his match.

Their second match was a convincing 4-1 win against Somerset, with Tom again winning his contest.

As the pool winners they got through to the semi-finals, where they met a strong Bristol team. Tom got the team off to a great start by winning his contest, but going into the last fight it was tied at 2-2.

Joey Capaldi, the Devon heavyweight player, put up a superb performance, but the final result was 2-3, so it was bronze for De­von against the eventual winners of this category.

?A memorable day for SBJC and Devon, in which the club’s players contested 32 fights and won all but two of them – not bad for a little Devon village club!