Meet the Coaches
Alistair McLeod
Level 1 Coach
Alistair McLeod is a Year 13 science student who began coaching for us last year. MX born and bred, he has fenced for the England Team and as a Cadet, on Team GB, and trained with British Fencing’s prestigious Athlete Development Programme. He has a stash of medals to his name, including the BYC U16 silver, and brings to bear a decade of experience in improving fencers’ performance. Alistair is also a qualified Level 2 referee.
His approach to fencing is to focus on each aspect of fencing in turn:
· Physiology
· Technique
· Strategy
First he makes sure that his trainee is physically able and if that is the case, he makes sure that the trainee has strong technique before finally working on strategy.
Rob Partridge
Level 3 Coach
Rob Partridge has been involved in fencing for over thirty years both as a competitive fencer and a coach. He trained under Professor Alf Simmonds for the first year then moved to Salle Frohlich where he trained with the then GB team fresh from the 92 Olympics as well as other top seniors, juniors, and cadets of the time. He is a former national champion (team) and was consistently ranked in the top eight of the senior rankings, fencing for England and Great Britain at national and international events.
As a coach, he has worked alongside Ian Williams at Camden FC, where produced national champions at cadet and junior level. He was a lead coach for the National Academy, former GB coach to the cadets, traveling to all international competitions, including World and European championships, with athletes finishing in the top ten. Former athletes include current Commonwealth champion, Jonathan Webb. He is well known to us at MX, as he has helped Phil train cadet athletes representing Team GB. He holds a Level 3 Sabre coaching qualification, a degree in Strength and Conditioning Sports Science, a Level 3 in Sports Massage, and is starting a master’s degree in Sports Nutrition in September.
To read more about Rob's Coaching Philosophy, click here.
Charlie Gellett
Level 2 Coach
Charlie has been fencing for 17 years now and for all of them, MX has been his home club. Charlie trained for many years under Phil, establishing himself as a competitive fencer achieving multiple cadet GB selections before suffering substantial illness towards the end of his final cadet year. Charlie's fencing career got reinvigorated when he attended Queen Mary University. Whilst at university, Charlie refound his competitive streak honed at MX and enjoyed several breakthroughs during this time. Highlights include winning the X-Systra international Student Challenge in Paris, winning the London International University Fencing Championships twice and achieving his first Senior World cup selection. For his efforts leading the development of the University Fencing club, Charlie was also named Queen Mary's Sports person of the year in 2018. To this day, Charlie has represented Great Britain in 6 Senior World Cups and Grand Prixs and remains determined to achieve selection again in the future. Charlie is still an actively competitive fencer and trains most weeknights at the Leon Paul centre as part of the Leon Paul High Performance Project.
Charlie will spend his non-training nights as the latest addition to the MX coaching team. Charlie believes in a hard working approach but never at the expense of enjoyment. He believes that if athletes are enjoying what they are doing and engaging consistently with it then good results will follow naturally in time. Charlie hopes to help preserve the excellent club culture he experienced as an athlete training with Phil whilst also bringing his other experiences to the fore to help take the club forward.