A small group of archers braved the weather on Sunday to shoot a variety of Metric rounds as part of the Club’s Handicap League.

The aim of a handicap round is to allow an archer to judge how he is shooting. Irrespective of which round is shot the Handicap Tables will adjust it to the same point relative to an archer’s current handicap. Thus if an archer shoots exactly to his handicap he will score 1440. Anything below this shows the shooter to be off form, while anything above 1440 shows the archer to be shooting above his best.

Shooting conditions were difficult on Sunday morning with the wind gusting and swirling down the field. The archers had to choose their moments to shoot carefully as it was frequently too windy to stand still. It was therefore no surprise that a few arrows went astray. What was surprising was the number of personal best scores that were recorded on the day. Dave Moore added 9 points to his pb in the Gents Long Metric. Karen Lott added 24 points to her pb to break the 1100 barrier for the first time. Danny Cowin added a terrific 35 points to his pb to break 1000 mark for the Gents WA1440 round for the first time and take second place overall after handicapping.

The weather reports suggested that conditions would worsen as the day wore and the clouds certainly looked threatening with rain expected at about 4 o’clock. As it was the wind dropped and only a few drops of rain fell which meant that the three juniors who turned up had the best of the weather. Joseph Reaney made the best of it by adding 79 points to his pb for the Short Metric II round and taking the overall win after the handicap was applied. James Hill also turned in a personal best score adding 38 points to his previous best and securing third place overall.

Charlotte Harris was preoccupied with thoughts of looming exams and did not shoot to the best of her ability. Barbara Harris continued her run of poor form to finish dead last after the handicap was applied.

On a brighter note Colin Moore shot a practice round which saw his form improve radically over the morning. His last six arrows included 5 X10’s which were packed so tightly Colin had trouble removing them from the boss.

Also shooting on Sunday was junior archer Jacob Brookes. This was Jacob’s first Sunday League Outdoor round. He needs to put in two more rounds to be given a handicap.

Results

Metric Handicap – 1. Joseph Reaney 1536 (65/422/7/3)pb, 2. Danny Cowin 1533 (143/1028/15/5)pb, 3. James Hill 1462 (59/272/0/0)pb, 4. Josh Trafford 1459 (72/520/4/1), 5. Rhys Moore 1446 (72/608/17/3), 6. Karen Lott 1440 (144/1109/15/3)pb, 7. Dave Moore 1424 (71/614/16/5)pb, 8. Charlotte Harris 1361 (68/373/2/1)pb, Pete Mumford 1360 (142/1198/37/14). Short Metric III – Jacob Brookes 60/316/0/0.