LOCAL fencers were out in force at the England Youth Champion-ships at Upper Heyford, Oxford-shire last weekend.

Top honours went to Tom Brenda (15) from Alcester (Alcester High School), who became the first national Under-16 boys' sabre champion for 2001-02 and Tim Perry (16) from Coventry (Blue Coat School), who won the Under-18 pe.

Brenda had to fence his brother, Richard, also 15, in the semi-final. The two evenly matched boys answered each other right to the wire and levelled the score at the final point 14-14. Tom made his move with a confident temp attack to win the bout.

Elder brother, David, made the day a family affair with a quarter-final medal at Under-18 level.

This was the first youth championships held for England. In all, the regional centre at Stratford, based at King Edward VI School, took two gold medals, one silver and two bronze.

One of the champions was peist, Tim Perry, who is now training at the expanding centre.

His final fight with Alex Brentnall, 17, from Canterbury, was tit-for-tat all the way up to 13-13 of the 15 hits they needed.

Perry's training and support from the experienced squad started to pay off when he kept focused and relaxed to make the last vital hits, where his older opponent tensed and missed at the critical moment.

KES had it's own success, with Robin Allen (16) and 17-year-old Pip Nicolson taking the silver and bronze medals and winning with them their coveted places in the England team for the junior Home International in March next year.

KES trained fencers have now won four of the six sabre places and an pe slot in the England boys' team. Brothers Tom and Richard Brenda were the sabreurs and Tim Perry the England pe team member.

Younger fencers were also in action. Luke Foster, David Mus-grave and Tom Most all won fights in their rounds.

Other KES boys, Aaron Fox (14), from Solihull, and 15-year-old Tom Musgrave made the cut to the elimination getting through to the last 16 stage of the championships.