The Flying Friendship Cup.
This annual competition was initiated about 40 years ago by a former club member Joe Garratt a British Airways senior manager and is a closely fought affair with a team of 4 each fencing in one of the four disciplines. Wellesbourne was fortunate to have Joe join as a member some years ago when he was still at British Airways and had been fencing since his Navy days. In his early life at BA Joe started fencing with other airline fencing teams on an annual basis and so the FFC was formed over 30 years ago.
After he joined WSC Joe asked if we would like to come to the competition as he had no other BA fencers and for as long as I can remember Wellesbourne has been fencing as the British Airways team which is a bit strange but we like to carry on the tradition. (I did work at BEA in the 70's so feel OK about this)
So each year we fence in a different city against KLM, Iceland Air, Air France and Aeroport de Paris and although many of his old friends have retired we have made many new friends over the years of traveling to Paris , Amsterdam and Brussels and we have twice hosted the event here in London .
Joe was a great friend of mine and of the club as he served on the committee for several years and we miss him since his death in 2001.
Written by Andrew Brown.
Our photo pages have the photos from the last few years FFCs.
The competition is a team event combined with individuals fencing at the same time, there are rules of course and the French have often found ways of interpreting them in a different way from us ! However the competition is great fun and in 2007 we will be sending 2 teams of each weapon and many individual fencers to Amsterdam on the 30th of June (provisionsal) so book your place now by emailing Andrew Brown