Members of South Shields Judo Club find success in a Scottish tournament
South Shields Judo Club is celebrating a successful tournament in Scotland.
Seven members of South Shields Judo Club, based at Temple Park, travelled to Livingston, in Scotland, for a tournament on Sunday, October 20.
Despite it being the first tournament for five of the members, the club came away with one silver medal and six bronze medals.
Then on Tuesday, October 29, the club saw more success as it hosted its ‘half-term rumble’ against a club from Middlesbrough - during which members picked up two gold, three silver and five bronze medals.
Beth Foster, one of the coaches at South Shields Judo Club, has expressed her pride in the children for their performance in both tournaments.
She said: “I’m really of proud them. In Scotland, there were four mats and some of the youngsters can get overwhelmed by it all because there is no one to help them when they are in the middle of the mat.
“Obviously they’ve got the skills that they’ve learnt at the club but to go all that distance and compete in their first competition is just magic.
“Everyone at the club is so proud of them, it was unbelievable to see how well they did.
“Even though we didn’t get a gold medal in Scotland, it has given us a lot of thought and focus on what we need to work on with the children going forward.
“The most important thing to come from it was the social side, we had seven children there who all supported each other - it was a team.
“When they are on the mat, they are individuals but it was a team effort and it was lovely to see.”
The success has come just months after the club went through a massive upheaval due to it having to move venues at such short notice.
Despite the issues faced by the club, Beth touched on her excitement for the future and gave an insight into what South Shields Judo Club has planned.
She added: “It was a shock because nobody knew that it was going to happen and we weren’t the only group at Mortimer to get three weeks notice.
“When you move bases, you can’t always get your same time slots so you lose members so we were really worried and that did happen to us.
“However, we’ve come back from it and managed to gain some new members on the back of doing leaflet drops in the local community and schools.
“The proof is in the pudding already given that we’ve taken seven children to Scotland who got a medal and now some of our newer members are wanting to get involved in competitions as well.
“All the competitions that we do are British Judo licenced and hosting things like the ‘half-term rumble’ is a new thing that we’ve been trialling.
“In the February half-term, we are going to go to Middlesbrough for the same tournament with the aim of doing it every half-term going forward.”
You can find out more about South Shields Judo Club by visiting: https://www.facebook.com/SouthShieldsJudoClub.