7.30am start from Cambridge down to the Crystal Palace Sports Centre for the weigh in and medical at 9.30am. Four fighters Steve Fenwick, Martin Thwaites, Simon Margot and Adam Everest were all weighed in and made their weight categories.

The tournament kicked off at 11am with the Novice fighters competing in all three categories. After quite a long wait, first up was Steve Fenwick in the middleweight category. The fight started well and Steve was getting in some good mae geri’s and oi tsuki’s which his opponent was definitely feeling. Unfortunately, his opponent managed to come back with some hard techniques winning with a wazari.

Next up was Adam Everest who managed to be drawn against the tallest fighter in the tournament, a Dutchman with a height difference of about two feet! Adam fought well with good punches and low kick combinations but he was at a severe disadvantage from the outset, the Dutchman’s long reach and long kicks were impossible to get by, Adam had little chance and the Dutchman won.

Simon and Martin had to wait quite a long time before their fights. Martin was called first against last year’s heavyweight champion. Martin went in guns blazing – this was his first karate tournament. Martin is naturally a puncher and went in very hard on his opponents chest, after numerous hard blows his opponent grabbed his throat complaining he’d been punched illegally, he fell to his knees and promptly vomited into a bucket provided by the Tournament Doctor. This happened a further two times with Martin being awarded a wazari. Only a few more seconds and Martin would be in the second round, unfortunately a slight loss of concentration on Martins part enabled his opponent to pull out a jodan mawashi geri and floored Martin, winning by an ippon. After the fight Martin was heard to be saying "I’m coming back for more next year".

Last up was Simon Margot, drawn against the Kyokushin’s Darling Kenny Jarvis – who has numerous championships and tournament titles under his belt. Simon had waited a long time to be called which may have contributed to his sluggish start, which Kenny Jarvis took complete advantage of although for the first half of the bout they were trading blows equally until Simon was penalised with a chui for holding. Kenny promptly replied with a Jodan mawashi geri stunning Simon but not knocking him down. A wazari was awarded. A few seconds later Kenny landed a lethal back kick, winding Simon and securing the second wazari to win the fight.

Even though our fighters didn’t get past their first rounds, all fought extremely well. We were quite unlucky in the draws and the waiting around didn’t help.

We packed our bags, said our goodbyes to Hanshi Steve Arneil and David Pickthall and went off for a well deserved celebratory dinner at the local Mexican.

We would like to thank all our fighters for their hard training and preparation for the tournament and showing true Shidokan Spirit, Coaches Senpei Kevin Hone and Sensei Donald Clift for their support and finally our Shihan, JJ Burnel for arranging the day and getting everybody home safely. Also thank you to Simon Margot’s father for supplying the transport and all the students that came to support us on the day.

Ossu.