Are you interested in competitive archery?

Archery is no different to other sports, as it is about competition. However, one of the great things about archery is that it caters for all abilities and ages. When you attend any archery event at club or county level you will not be alone at your skill level. Do not assume only top archers attend tournaments, as most are reasonably relaxed family events. You will also find that archers are a friendly bunch (well, most are) and when you attend your first tournament someone on your target will help you.

When you have finished you beginners course you may be wondering what to do next? Unfortunately, only a very few larger clubs have enough resources to run intermediate or improvement courses for their members, so you will need some self-motivation to progress. However, most clubs will have coaches you can talk to and seek advice. The Sussex Marlets Guild http://www.martletsguild.org.uk/ usually runs a number of improvement workshops during the winter. Both Rob and Rod are members of the guild, but you can contact Les Bartlett direct if you are interested in when courses are being run.

You will probably find shooting rounds at the club, in between practice sessions will be more rewarding. You can see what level you are at now, how you are progressing and set goals for what you wish to achieve. Scoring is also good practice for tournaments. Most archery dealers sell small score pads which can be used for scoring most rounds.

When you have a score for your round, send it to the Club Records Officer (Russell French). Once you have submitted 3 sets of scores, Russell will be able to give you a handicap. In addition to a handicap, you can aim for a classification. Both handicaps and classifications are a very good way of monitoring your performance. You can find more information on the Classification Scheme from the GNAS download section (the document is called Shooting Admin Procedures). The handicap scheme is copyrighted, so you have to purchase it if you want your own copy. The National rounds are a good choice for outdoor and Portsmouth, Bray and FITA 18 for indoor.

Finding tournaments can be tricky if you are new to the sport. One of the best places to look for tournaments is the Mayflower Archers Tournament Diary http://www.mayflowerarchers.co.uk/ . Before you compete at a tournament, you will need to be registered with GNAS. If you talk to Rod Brown, he can explain about registration and costs.
Rod has also written a number of guides, which will tell you what you need to know for your first tournament.

Arundown win at the County Championships

The Outdoor County Championships were held later in the season this year, due to problems with arrangements. They were held at Falmer High School in Brighton which is renowned for being one of the more windy venues, but yesterday the weather was very changeable. I was in and out of wet weather gear before the start and after finally settling on the dry weather quickly realised the error of my choice.

My first end scored 44, which is pretty acceptable for a 100 yard score. All was going well until the heavens opened as I approached the line for the second end and I got soaked and cold. At this point, my enthusiasm started to ebb. Shortly after this the wind started blustering strongly which set the theme for the day.

I finished my 6 dozen @ 100 yards about 100 points down on my PB, with 3 arrows off. I was pondering retiring to a hot bath and cup of tea, but County Archer Graham Stevens of Holbrook was having an even more miserable time than myself and beat me to it.

During Lunch I was talking to fellow recurve archer Nick Prysnyak from Bognor and found out that he was 2 points behind me and this was the trend over the field. To my amazement I went on to take second place in the Gents Recurve with a score of 938.

I learnt the lesson that it’s worth soldiering on, even if you believe you are doing badly as others may be doing equally so or worse. As Graham said archers often compare their scores against their own PB’s and not what’s being shot there and then.

Arundown Archer Selected for County

I was pleased to find out that I had been selected to shoot for Sussex at the Inter-Counties Tournament at Andover next month. Other archers new to the squad were also selected based on their recent performances. Previous Arundown archers who have represented Sussex include Rod Brown, Dave Hodges and Gordon who shot for nine years.

Another UK National Record for Liz

Liz took the UK National record for the Gents Two-Way Double Clout Round at Penrith earlier in the year, but had failed to win the tassel award she was after on that occasion by three points. So she gave it another go yesterday at Devizes in very blustery conditions and this time she easily won the tassel and upped the record another 27 points, ending on 99 for the double round and very nearly equalling one of Arundown's blokes.

Surrey Clout Championships

(Click on any picture to view Full-Size)
What was beginning to look like an impenetrable barrier was broken today when Jon scored 179 for the double round and won a Blue GNAS Tassel (he already has a RED FITA Tassel) and broke the County Open Record too. As usual Jon took it right down to the wire, and for a moment looked like chucking it when his second to last end fell apart, but he came back strongly in the final end - look at the bottom picture below.
One of the difficulties of the Surrey field at Warlingham is that the gents' clouts are just beyond a ridge, and archers with fast bows can't see where their arrows have landed. Here Jon is trying to see his arrow drop out of the sky 180 yards away...


Nick seemed very much at home shooting his Longbow at his first competitive event - he even scored with several shots, something that's by no means guaranteed with a longbow. What was very promising was the way he was getting arrows well past the clout as well as in front, but clout with a longbow is an art that takes quite a while to master.


Compare Nick's style with Dicky Summers' - here seen next to Russ. Dicky shoots a bow that at 65 pounds is about 25% heavier to draw than Nick's, and Dicky is also quite small, so he's had to develop a unique style - but it works well as he's been UK champion more than once, and holds National records.


Rod started off with a fairly indifferent 63 for the first round, then things got much better in the second round, finishing up with a score of 101, the final end scoring 25 points with three clouts, his best ever in an open shoot, final score for the double round 164. The picture below shows the group of arrows round the flag, with Rod's and Jon's best arrows marked - Jon scored 18 for his final end, giving a mighty sigh of relief when he saw he'd got 4 points more than the bare minimum to get the blue (and that he'd beaten the standing County Record by seven points)

August Summer Selby Short Metric

Thank you to everyone who helped set the field up early.

If you look back at July's Selby, I have added the last score from Quantum B. It looks like 3 wins in the month of July. This month however, we shot too well (shame on us) and got clobbered by the thresholds.

Today we had the second to last Short Metric in the Summer Selby League. The weather was not bad, although we had a deceptive side wind from left to right.

Special praise goes to John Nolan who put in his best short metric score this summer - Well done John :-)

Archer, Score,. Hits, Golds , X's

Division 9 Arundown A ~v~ Puriton Gold B
Richard Cobden 587, 71, 35, 6
Jon Stafford 567, 72, 30, 0
Rod Brown 526, 70, 23, 0
Total 1680, 213, 88,6
Adjusted score 1610

Puriton Gold B scored Pending


Division 14 Arundown B ~v~ Deben
Russell French 508, 71, 6, 1
John Nolan 506, 70, 21, 2
Graham Brown 493, 71, 6, 3
Total 1507, 212, 33, 6
Adjusted 1383

Deben scored 1409 – Result Lost (Deben had no Adjustments!)

Division 18 Arundown C ~v~ Archers of Raunds A
Liz Bowyer 461, 70, 5, 0
Hamish Matheson 452, 68, 16, 0
Simon Beach 448, 68, 16, 1
Total 1361, 206, 37, 1
Adjusted 1039

Archers of Raunds scored Pending

CMO Bowmen's Open Annual Tournament

A contingent of one (me) attended the above record status shoot in Croydon yesterday.

The event attracted the usual top Gents recurves, with gold going to a Perris staff shooter who shot 1120. I was not in the medals, but I came away with a bottle of sherry from the raffle.

Taking part in the York, I shot 1046 claiming a Blue Rose but falling a few points short of a MB classification score. Next year I will be attending mainly record status Yorks and FITA's so if anyone wants to jump into the big league of target archery give me a shout.

This was a well run and friendly shoot and not too far away (as Yorks go).

Bayeux Lazy Shoot

Myself, John Nolan and Emily attended Dave Egalton’s Lazy Windsor in Catsfield. This was the same venue that we shot the Albion against Newhaven at a couple of weeks ago. We were blessed with blazing sunshine and only a very slight breeze.

Emily did very well at 60 yards considering we only roughly set her bow up Monday night with her new limbs. She shot well at 60 and 50 yards, but the heat took it’s toll as the afternoon set in.

I was keen to improve on the county record I set at Ditchling in July. I kicked off with a 6 gold end and finished the 60 yards 4 points up on Ditchling score. I went on to score 936 setting a new record shooting 91 golds including eight 6 gold ends.

John struggled to keep a consistent form as the heat increased during the day. Despite several layers of sun cream we all came away slightly pink and glowing.

The scores on the day: -

Richard 936 scored, 91 golds, 108 hits
John 729 scored, 34 golds, 107 hits
Emily – TBA

Southampton Clout

Maybe the weather will be perfect for clout one day this summer, but it wasn't for the Southampton Tournament. It was sunny enough, but the wind was very unkind and vindictive, so once again it wasn't a good day for improving tassel awards, or national rankings. All the same, Jon's 171 came close to the Sussex County record and won the Gent's recurve competition outright. Russ see-sawed between high scoring ends and next to nothing, but still came second 35 points behind Jon. Rod plodded along in a consistently middling way and came fourth, ten points behind Russ. Liz tried her faster bow, and found it had a near-impossible, truly 'underhand', aiming point, so only managed second place with 146. Graham came second in the longbow class with a very useful 58.
For all that, this was a very enjoyable and well-run shoot in a very pleasant setting apart from the constant motorway rumble. The full results lists arrived by e-mail about an hour after we got home. Put it in the dairy for next year.