University Karate

Here are some unpublished photos taken at an International Student Karate Competition organised by the British Student Karate Federation in the summer of 1989 at Crystal Palace, London. This competition brought a large squad from Japan from the All Japan University Karate Association (AJUKA) as well as competitors from Europe and Africa. It was an exciting days competition although it was marred by some strange refereeing incidents. I will shortly type up the reports from Traditional Karate and Combat magazines at that time.

My personal favourite was watching Wayne Otto plough through all the middleweights leaving the slightly biased referees with no option that to award him the points when so often they glossed over many of the techniques of other non-Japanese competitors.

It was a well attended competition and it is a shame that we do not have more events like this.