Young Judo Club Open Junior Judo Championships
Swallows Leisure Centre Sittingbourne
Sunday November 4th
YJC Championship Results 4/11/2001
Swale Martial Arts Club are now the proud owner of a brand new trailer, Canvas and mats. The items cost nearly £9000; the English Lottery and fund raising by the members supplied the money. Young Judo Club instructor Keith Costa was the main driving force behind the venture and the club owe a great deal of thanks. The idea behind the Trailer and mats is simply to allow the Club to be more mobile. In the past if ever we wanted to do something away from the club it meant picking up all the mats and hiring transport, which proved very prohibitive. With the mats and trailer we can do lot more charity events such as fetes etc, we can also go out to villages and schools to give them a taster of the Martial Arts plus we can hire larger venues for competitions and courses. Last weekend we used the mats for major tournament at the Swallows Leisure Centre, next year we intend hiring the event 3 times and hiring a ACF Camp at St Mary’s Bay for weekend Summer Camp. You will not miss the Trailer it has been beautifully sign written by MAIDSTONE SIGNS who helped sponsor us.
It you are interested in the Martial Arts please contact Keith Costa 01795 426784, KeithCosta@Madasafish.com, www.YoungJudoClub.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
This is now an annual event for the Club and is attracting more competitors every time this year we had 200 competitors. The main reason for its success is the Venue the Swallows makes an excellent site for Martial Arts Competition and the excellent organisational qualities of the club and in particular the competition organiser Keith Costa. Keith follows a long line of Young Judo Club competition organisers; the club has been running tournaments since 1957. Keith skills are in demand all over the country he has organised tournaments in Scotland, London, Nottingham, Bedford as well as around Kent. He has been asked to run the prestigious IBF Multi Nations at the Swallows in 2003 and in preparation for this he will be running an International Judo Tournament at the Swallows next April.
As expected the tournament run very smoothly a lot of thanks for this must go to the different club coaches, who came from many different associations, who kept there cool when things went a little wrong. One of the things that marred Junior Judo Competitions in the past was when a referees decsion did not always go the way coaches and parents wanted it to. This would lead to some rather ugly scenes with parents and coaches squaring up to each other. Most of the time the youngsters themselves would be playing while the adults were arguing. Thankfully this seems to be a thing of the past as I explain these tournaments are not the Olympic games, I believe all Junior tournaments should be a fun event an apprenticeship for adult Judo.
After saying that there is still a sense of pride in your club when you do get medals.
It was pleasing to see that nearly all the Judo clubs in Swale attended this event no matter what association they belonged to. The Young Judo Club Sittingbourne was once again very successful in this hard fought competition, winning 5 gold medal a special mention must go to Kieron Allen who won Gold in his first competition. Young Judo Club medallists are listed below.
There was one disappointing fact was the standard of dress of some of the officials, IBF Judo has always been proud of its dress code and managed to avoid modern dress sense ie casual or scruffy. Lets hope in future these officials once again abide by the high standard of dress expected of the IBF.
Any one interested in Judo should contact Keith Costa 01795 426784