SAMURAI Judo Club now has three sixth dans after club founder Andrew Haffner was promoted to the coveted grade by the British Judo Association.

He joins Paul Moss, who received his sixth dan last June, and Paul Jones, who was the first member of the club to be promoted to the grade in 2014.

Samurai became one of only a very few clubs in the country to have three sixth dans; at most clubs the highest grade is often first or at most second dan.

The sixth dan grade is awarded for services to the sport and can only be awarded by the BJA, under licence from the European Judo Union. It is coloured red and white in alternating blocks.

Andrew Haffner started judo in 1970 at the now-closed Kidderminster Judo Club, initially under the tutelage of Ron Cook. He founded the Samurai club in 1979, and within three years the club was already the strongest in the county, and these days they are considered one of the best out of around a thousand judo clubs in the UK.

The Samurai club has around 170 members of all ages and, unusually for a judo club, almost evenly split between male and female players, and a state of the art purpose built dojo in Zortech Avenue considered to be the best judo premises in the Midlands and one of the best in the country.

Andrew himself, because of focusing on coaching and running the club, did not get his first level black belt until 1985, but then quickly moved up to second level in 1988, third level in 1992, fourth level in 1996 and fifth level in 2006.

He has also three times won gold at the British Kata Championships as well as bronze at the British Masters. As well as being a high level qualified coach and with an honours degree in teaching from Worcester University, he is a qualified National Referee – two of his refereeing pupils have gone on to become international referees - and a Senior Examiner, able to grade to all black belt levels.

As a Competition Controller, the highest level of competition organizer, he is rated the third best competition organizer in Britain, behind two of his Samurai clubmates, Ben Newbury and Sarah Newbury. He chairs both the National Competitions Commission and the National Promotions Commission and is a member of the BJA’s Board of Directors.

But it is the coaching of national and international medallists which remains, along with the existence of the club itself, as Andrew’s main achievement.

He has coached Kate Walker, who was seventh at both the Junior Europeans and European U23 Championships and ninth at the Japan Grand Slam, two players who went on to compete at the London Olympics in judo, five World Masters medallists, a Commonwealth champion, four British Senior Trials medalists including two golds, and a staggering 86 British Junior Nationals medallists including 17 British Junior Champions to date.