DCUK Championships crowns 3 Champions

Saturday 20th September saw the 2014 Drum Corps United Kingdom season come to an exciting climax with the 35th British Drum Corps Championships which was held for the 2nd year running at the fabulous facilities of the Select Security Stadium in Widnes, Cheshire with its state of the art “i-pitch” astro turf pitch providing the perfect marching surface for the 15 competing units.

The day started at 11.15am with all 12 Open Class Corps competing in the Preliminary contest which included, travelling from the Netherlands, Juliana who, whilst not a DCUK member Corps, could compete but were not able to formally be placed. The preliminaries would decide which 3 Corps would compete for the A Class Championships and which would go through to the Open Class Finals and fight for the top prize - British Champions. 

Prelims Results
Spirit of Coventry - 44.20 
The Pacemakers - 52.55 
Liberty - 53.75
Nexus -59.05 
37th Kingswood - 59.75 
Revolution - 63.80 
East Coast Elite - 65.00 
Cadence - 65.30 
Black Knights - 75.90 
Juliana - 79.30
The Company - 80.30 (1.1)
Kidsgrove Scouts - 82.30 

And so to the 3 Championships... 

There were 3 Corps in the Junior Class Championships and the support in the stand for these young performers was brilliant. It was nip and tuck between the top two with Thurrock Marching Brass winning their first DCUK title just keeping ahead of Concord AllStars. This year Caption Awards were awarded for the first time in the class and Thurrock came away top in Visual, Guard and Effect with Concord bagging the Percussion, Brass and Music captions. 

Junior Class Results
3rd – Black Knights Cadets - 50.85
2nd - Concord AllStars - 58.30
1st – Thurrock Marching Brass - 60.95 

In the A Class Championships three Corps fought it out for British A Class title with Liberty taking 1st Place and also winning the Visual, Guard, Percussion (tie) and Effect Caption Awards with The Pacemakers getting the Percussion (tie) Brass and Music Caption Awards. 

A Class Results
3rd – Spirit of Coventry - 42.95
2nd – The Pacemakers - 49.25
1st - Liberty - 53.35 

And so we moved to the floodlit Open Class Finals. And what a different those lights can make as there was a marked improvement from the Corps from the morning prelims shows as the magnificent stadium showcased their performances and the audience really rose to the occasion supporting the units throughout the whole event. 

So 2014 saw Kidsgrove Scout take back the title and make this their sixth DCUK British Championships win plus also taking the Visual, Guard, Percussion, Effect & Music (tie) Caption Awards. The Company in 2nd Place took the Silver Medal along with the Brass and Music (tie) Caption Awards with Black Knights coming in 3rd and the Bronze medal

Open Class Results
8th - Nexus - 60.45
7th - 37th Kingswood - 61.85
6th - Revolution - 63.90
5th - East Coast Elite - 66.65
4th - Cadence - 66.90
3rd - Black Knights - 77.55
         Juliana - 81.10
2nd - The Company - 83.65
1st - Kidsgrove Scouts - 85.35

Full recaps for the whole day can be found on our Results page. 

Photo courtesy of Select Security Stadium

DCUK would like to congratulate all Corps for providing us with another exciting season of Drum Corps and, to all the support staff and spectators, thank you for supporting the Corps throughout the year.

Unfortunately, due to network issues on the day with the software hosting company, the UK Fan Network could not be loaded with the Prelims performances as hoped (maybe next year) but watch out for the full Finals shows coming soon!!!! 

So that brought the 2014 UK Drum Corps season to a close but 2015 is not that far away and the 36th consecutive British Drum Corps season from DCUK - The Home of British Drum Corps – will be upon us before you know it and we hope you will be there to watch it all over again!