Albion at Bayeux Bowmen’s Ground

Seven archers represented Arundown in our last match in this seasons Sussex Albion League. Bayeux hosted the shoot at their small but picturesque field which overlooks the site of the 1066 battlefield with Battle Abbey prominent on the adjacent hill top across the valley. Although three clubs were in attendance, we had already lost to Bayeux at home and were only competing against Newhaven. Regrettably we lost our match, although we were represented solely by recurves.

Each club can field as many archers as they wish (within reason), but only the top four scores of each club count to the total. The Albion League is pretty unique as compounds shoot head-to-head with recurve bows. A simple adjustment of 80 points is taken from all compound archers total scores.

The intention of the Sussex Albion League is to get clubs to socialise together and is intended to be non-competitive. However throwing leagues and a cup into the mix, does make it competitive.

The simplistic 80 point adjustment can only be argued as valid if you compare gents MB classification scores. As the average archer attending an Albion is more likely to be 1st or 2nd Class the adjustment should be bigger. In addition Ladies compete head-to-head with Gents. With a large number of clubs fielding a number of compounds, it’s tough for a pure recurve team to compete.

We had some good scores on the day, especially Simon Beach’s vastly improved Albion PB of 731, which exceeded a 1st Class by 31 points. Simon has improved greatly this year and we should see greater things from him during the 2010 outdoor season.

The scores on the day were: -

Richard Cobden 832
Jon Stafford 819
Simon Beach 731
Graham Brown 706

Total 3088

Russell French 669
Rod Brown 661
Declan Ross-Thomas 595