A Perth fencing club will make up more than half of Scotland’s Commonwealth fencing team when the competition begins next week.
From Monday, 21 Salle Ossian fencers will represent Scotland in the Commonwealth Fencing Championships at London’s SportsDock Campus.
With 40 competition slots available and some members of the Perth side occupying more than one each, the Fair City will make up a significant majority of the squad in the sabre discipline.
The achievement is even more incredible given that the club is less than a decade old.
In this article club founder and head coach Phil Carson, and team member Lucy Higham, reveal the secrets behind Salle Ossian’s meteoric rise.
Champion children
Phil Carson is a former policeman whose hobby became his job and vice-versa.
The 57-year-old hails from Glasgow and was brought up in Edinburgh before spending more than 20 years as a policeman in the City of London.
He was in Scotland’s Commonwealth fencing team in 1986 but his career was halted by a knee injury.
Phil’s daughters, Victoria and Rebecca, wanted to follow in his footsteps and inspired him to take up coaching because there was nowhere to take them fencing.
His methods helped them both become Scottish and British champions. Rebecca, 26, retired after winning a Commonwealth gold medal when she was 17 while Vicky, 31, is now a fencing coach in Hertfordshire.
‘They can train six days a week in Perth’
By the time Phil moved to Scotland in 2012, due to his wife Rose’s new job, he had taught in some of the world’s top sabre clubs. He decided to put everything into fencing and set up Salle Ossian.
Within three years he opened Scotland’s first dedicated training centre for fencing at the Riverview Business Park in Friarton Road.
“I was looking for somewhere we could open a centre and Perth fit the bill,” Phil said.
“It was partly because of the cost of hiring premises and also that the people I was training with were across Fife, Perth and Stirlingshire so it made sense.
“Having dedicated facilities, being consistent and the whole ethos behind opening the centre has made a big difference.
“If a kid wanted to fence where could they go? At the time there was nowhere to go but now they can train six days a week in Perth.”
‘We have no cliques’
It could be argued that Perth has since become the national hub for fencing, with Salle Ossian attracting players from all across Scotland.
The club’s success speaks for itself.
“We have now won all of the Scottish and British titles at one time or another over the past 10 years at every age group,” Phil said.
“I have got someone on the World Championships team every single year. That shows consistency, which is really important.”
Sprayed on the walls within the club’s home are two sentences that encapsulate Phil’s ethos.
They are: ‘Nothing works like hard works work’ and ‘work hard for yourself and harder for each other’.
“It is very simple,” Phil explained. “You turn up and work hard for each other. That gives you a good culture. Once you have that it is easy to coach.
“A lot of the parents say how positive the work ethic is, especially for girls. We have no cliques and the girls and boys train with each other.”
‘It is the best club in Scotland’
Lucy Higham, 29, is one of Scotland’s medal hopes in London having been selected for the British senior team in January for the first time.
The teacher has seen, at close quarters, the transformation of Salle Ossian since joining eight years ago.
“Back then we were just in high school gyms without facilities, maybe 10 people beating each other up on Wednesday evenings,” Lucy recalls.
“Now we have a dedicated sports facility, a strength and conditioning coach. We have far more fencers and have even started doing wheelchair fencing. It has expanded loads, from the kids classes to veterans and everything in between.
“It’s great fencing at the club. It is the best in Scotland. We have an amazing coach in Phil Carson and have done a lot of grass roots coaching and gone into primary schools.
“We have taken people at a young age and now we are having success after years of putting the work in.”
‘You become self-reliant and self-confident’
In London, Lucy will be performing as a senior in her first Games. The three other categories are under-17s, under-20s and over 40s. There will be both individual and team events.
She has spent the build-up to next week’s event on a training camp in Manchester. Other members of the team have been at camps in Italy and Cornwall.
Fencing is not one of the core sports in the Commonwealth Games so the competition is omitted from Birmingham this week.
Instead it is a rotational sport so has its own separate event. The third category is development sports.
Sabre is one of three weapons used in fencing. The others, epee and foil, have their own separate events at the Games.
“Fencing is a great sport, a good tactical game,” Lucy said. “If you can face off against someone wielding a sword and have the self-belief to choose a tactic and deliver it to the best of your abilities you can transfer it to other parts of life.
“Because it is an individual sport only you are responsible for the outcome so you become self-reliant and self-confident.”
‘There are a couple of stars in there’
Despite the club’s success, Phil is cautious about his predictions for Scotland in London.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we picked up a medal here and there”
He said: “It is a very very young team. They are inexperienced, relatively speaking. We have two 13 year olds who will still be competing in the juniors at the next Commonwealths, they’re that young.
“Canada, England, India and Australia are all strong countries. Because of Covid I don’t really know what those teams will look like. There are many unknowns.
“We need to train them well and let them do the best they can do. There are a couple of stars in there and I wouldn’t be surprised if we picked up a medal here and there.”
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