Brondesbury College Wrestlers Win 5 Medals at the Southern Region Open 2011
On Sunday 3rd July, a small team of wrestlers from Brondesbury College travelled to Bristol in South West England to compete in the Southern Regions Open wrestling tournament.
This tournament is held annually in a different city each year. The teams taking part in the competition were:
Bristol Academy for Wrestling
Birmingham Wrestling Club
Lewisham Wrestling Club
Sharples Wrestling Club (Bolton)
Slough Wrestling Club
Team USB (Leytonstone East London)
Marathon Wrestling Club (Shoreditch East London)
YMCA Wildcats Freestyle Wrestling Club (Castlefield – Manchester)
London Shootfighters (Park Royal West London)
Kensington Wrestling Club
Nottingham Wrestling Club
Tryst Lions Wrestling Club (Cumbernauld – Scotland)
Middleton & Wirksworth Wrestling Club
And lastly, but by no means least Brondesbury College.
This being our first tournament outside of the school, we went there not knowing what to expect, and for me it was all about the kids gaining in valuable experience and giving a good representation of themselves.
We met at BCB at 6am and arrived in Bristol at 8.15 am. The first thing we had to do was weight in:
Ibrahim Madi (11 years old) 55.6 kg,
Isa Wahid (12 years old) 47.4 kg,
Tarek Muradi (13 years old) 53.9kg,
Hamzah Uddin (15 years old) 40.5 kg
Naim Rahim (15 years old) 71.6 kg
Then we had something to eat. After that the boys got changed and we warmed up outside before joining all the other teams inside to warm up further and get a feel for the mats. Wrestling commenced at around 11.30am. There were two 12x12 Olympic mats (MAT1 & MAT2), and initially there was a lot of confusion with the matches in terms of where & when they would take place. The location of matches changed 3 times, but hamdoulilallal the Mansoor Eslami ‘Director of the Southern Regions’ was there to help us throughout.
Masha-Allah the kids wrestled hard and never gave up. Most importantly was there adaab (manners), which was described by the Southern Regions Director as, and I quote:
“…they displayed impeccable manners on and off the mat…’’.
The kids were competitive in all their matches. Their lack of experience on how to win matches showed at times, sometimes resulting in them being in positions they didn’t need to be in, but you can only get such experience through competing and learning from your mistakes. Masha-Allah our team was physically in great condition and they were able to come out on top (with the will of Allah SWT) in some tough matches which could have gone either way.
In the end all 5 of our team earned a well deserved place on the podium, with the following results (in order of weight):
Hamzah Uddin (Bangladesh) Yr10 (42 kg category) – BRONZE
Isa Wahid (Pakistan) Yr7 (49 kg category) – BRONZE
Tarek Muradi (Egypt) Yr8 (54 kg category) – SILVER
Ibrahim Madi (Palestine) Yr7 (55 kg category) – GOLD
Naim Rahim (Algeria) Yr10 (72 kg category) – SILVER
Not a bad result for a School from North West London
TAKBEER! ALLAHU AKBAR!
But more important than results and medals was the fact that the kids really had a great day Alhamdu lil Allah.
Jazaak Allah khayr to all the wrestling squad members, staff, students & parents who helped us prepare for the tournament. And a special thanks to Mr. Wahid (Isa’s Father) who went with us up to Bristol.
ALLAH (SWT) SAYS IN THE HOLY QUR’AN, SURAT AL-MAIDA AYA 2:
“…HELP YE ONE ANOTHER IN RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PIETY, BUT HELP YE NOT ONE ANOTHER IN SIN AND RANCOUR; FEAR ALLAH: FOR ALLAH IS STRICT IN PUNISHMENT.’’
Fi-iman-il-Allah,
Edited by Mohamed Shafi
