Surrey Clout Championships

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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)