From supporter to UK's Head Marshal, story of Mary George

I first came into the sport back in 2018 but heard about it in 2017 when Danny first started soft kit. My first experience is me sitting in the car for 8 hours while my husband Danny was training with The Northern Wolves. I wouldn’t get out the car because I didn’t want to see him get hurt but look at me now!

We decided to open our own dedicated club venue during lockdown 2020 (Honour and Arms, which was established in 2017), which people thought was crazy.. but it all worked out. The Northern Wolves as a team train out of this club.

I helped put on our first tournament in 2021 which was Honour and Arms Buhurt Challenger. I had no idea what we were doing but this showed us that we really didn’t have many marshals. To help facilitate more events, Danny and I started marshal training together. From there we both got accredited in 2022 and then went to the Buhurt League World Cup 2023 and was surprised to get international accreditation after a long 4 day tournament. This really made me want to go even further with the marshaling.

Last year I found out our UK head marshal was stepping back and had decided to put me forward for taking the position further, it was just what I wanted to further my marshaling. With that I become the UKs first female head marshal. I have been pushing to grow the UK marshal team since then and we now have 3 international, 2 conference and 2 regional marshals. We have quite a lot of trainees also with more in line for certification this year.

I only went into marshaling because of the organisation side of putting events on but now I love it.

Along with Danny, I help put on about 90% of the UK events. It is hard work and very tiring but I do it because I love the sport and the fighters love the tournaments. I have helped host around 15+ events over the last 3years from small scale duelling events to full weekend events like our Castleton Cup event. This doesn’t include those events we have been asked to help organise but not directly hosted.

I’m happy to say Danny and I have also just held the first UK caged medieval combat event, Saturday Knight Fights and the first Arnold’s UK event.

Alongside my event organisation and marshalling, I am also a trustee for MCSA-GB and I’m currently the vice head of the tournament committee for Buhurt International.

~ Mary George