Chelmsford judo club

History so far 2018

A brief history of the club , as accurate as i can remember.

When I Dave got involved it was about 1980 already i was a 1st dan and was a coach at Witham Judo Club, with as it happens two coaches from the Chelmsford area , ,Witham was a very hard club and we were all much younger then , Amongst our judoka were Bbritish and Olympic team members which meant that what they learnt at training camps was past on to all at the club. As with most clubs people moved about and training elsewhere , I also moved out of the area. This is when i got involved with Chelmsford JC ,training Tuesday evening and Saturday morning at the Chelmsford Tech by the station as it was. The coach was a guy called Allan Grimley who was a real character , we had a great lot of Judoka of which only Andy White and myself are the last men standing, sort of . Chelmsford JC had been around for i would thnk 20 years prior to this date 1980 , So well established by the time i got involved , probably by the mid 90s Alan retired and Ray Neanam an Olympian and Brritish champion took over as coach of a now very strong group of Judoka. When the college gym was demolished the club was relocated to the new University with new mats from funding sourced by Ray , it was a huge mat area . The club flourished under Rays coaching and it attracted a very high standard of Judoka and got the reputation of a hard practice . This must of carried on for about 10 years or more but the numbers started to drop off with the main core of Judoka getting older and having to decide for themselves what their priorities were, after a very hard night getting up for work the next day , Its the same now, no different.

Around 2013

Ray retired as coach and the Club moved to Dovedales Sports centre where it had been for a short period with Ray. This is when Rick Hogan and myself took over as coaches , we are now in times when coaches had to be certified coaches with all the qualifications that any sports club coaches have to have . This was like starting again from scratch for members ,most of the old club Judoka were gone and when i bumped into them on my travels would say they were going to return, it never quite happened in most cases . A few years pass and we have the chance to relocate again in the town which would be in a Martial arts centre run by one the club Judoka Rob Simpson . We are lucky that we have the only fixed mat in mid Essex and get good numbers on the mat most weeks , Rick and myself are fortunate enough to have back from Tony Cook, and always helper Dave Lucas , very experienced Judoka .

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