A full Cowdenbeath Team attended with over 30 participants plus family members.

Cowdenbeath Karate Club travelled through to the west of Scotland to compete in the 2008 British All Style Karate Championships, kindly organised by Billy Haggerty and Graham McAnn. The event consisted of Kata and Kumite events for both juniors and adults and ran for most of the day.

The day started with the Kata events in the morning. A few of the Cowdenbeath squad competed in the events with some good results coming from the junior section. For most of our members though, the main focus is Kumite and this is were the team came into their own and really excelled.

Gordon and Chris would like to state that we are committed to continuing to do both Kata and Kumite training at our club. We do understand that for most of our adults and students that there is now a wish to only do the fighting aspect of the training. Although they see no realistic benefit or reason to continuing with Kata, we still see some mileage in this.

We would also like to state we are not, at present, intending to start up our own group or association that is committed solely to raising the standard of our Kumite to a national level.

Instructors Gordon Maxwell and Chris Whyte were pleased with everyone's performance and would like to thank everyone who attended and supported the event. It was a pleasure to see how many of our members made the effort and travelled through, all the way to Dumbarton, on such a miserable afternoon.

Thank you to everyone for your support, over the last year and beyond. Hopefully we can all travel to Belfast in February to fight in their international open. We also intend to travel to Belgium in September 2009 to fight in a 5 nation tournament so we hope to see you there as well.

One final comment before we get to the bulk of the results - The Cowdenbeath Senior Team achieved a bronze medal in the main event of the Scottish Championships. We have been the only club to enter the national championships and win medals over the last few years (A report and photos will follow).

Results ( photo’s to follow )