With the threat of rain and the holiday season underway, it was a select few who turned up on Sunday to shoot the first National round of the year. Nationals are shot over yards rather than metres and employ a five zone scoring system of 9/7/5/3/1, so that the maximum score per six arrows is 54 rather than the 60 points available in metric rounds. The round of the day was a York for the men (6 dozen arrows at 100y, 4 dozen at 80y and 2 dozen at 60y) and a Hereford for the ladies (same arrow distribution but at 80, 60 & 50yds) shot on large target faces.

In spite of the weather forecast the shoot got underway in bright sunshine and relatively warm temperatures. The largest field of the day came in the Gents Compound division with Pete Mumford up against Dave and Rhys Moore. It might have been expected that Rhys would storm away to victory given his sensational form this season but after the first distance was completed he was lying in third place, 8 points behind Pete and 29 points behind Dave. This was in spite of Dave having a miss with one of his first arrows. Rhys steadied at 80yds overtaking Pete Mumford and closing the gap between his Dad and himself down to 21 points. Dave responded by dropping only 6 points over the last distance to take the win by 29 points and record a new personal best score into the bargain. Rhys had to settle for second some way off his best and the permanently relaxed Pete Mumford finished third.

Joy Gough as always put in a solid performance but was unhappy with some errant arrows that strayed out into the 5 zone and left her well short of her best score.

Barbara Harris did not have a good day. The normally quiet and reserved Records Officer had something of a meltdown part way through the morning’s shoot and gave vent to a pithy and anguished denunciation of the Hereford round after sending a second arrow into the grass. She followed this up with another dreadful shot that ended up taking a chunk of wood out of the boss stand – it did nothing to improve her temper and she finished with a score over 100 points below her pb.

The only other person to suffer at the hands of the National round was Danny Cowin, but Danny’s sunny disposition and stoic nature made it impossible for his fellow club members to tell when he had executed a poor shot; the juniors could learn a lot from his approach. At the end of the day Danny recorded a score well below his best.

Fresh from Team Gold at the Warrior Games in Chicago, Matt Elliott shot a Long National during the morning session. In spite of having no sight marks he settled quickly and recorded a pb for the round.

Juniors Joseph Reaney, Jacob Brookes, Nathan Kinrade and James Hill turned out for the afternoon session and unfortunately got the worst of the weather. Whilst it never actually rained, the skies darkened, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. It did not have any effect on the boys however, and they enjoyed another hard fought but good natured shoot. Joseph Reaney and James Hill shot a Junior National (4 dozen arrows at 50y & 2 dozen at 40y). James added an excellent 74 points to his pb for the round but had to settle for second place behind Joseph who was on fire as he added an astounding 125 points to his pb to take the win. Nathan Kinrade and Jacob Brookes faced off in a Short Junior National (same distribution of arrows but at 30 & 20yds). It was Nathan’s first attempt at the round and he recorded a splendid benchmark score but Jacob Brookes had an amazing round adding 107 points to his pb to seal victory.

Results: York – Gents Compound 1.D.Moore 143/1185/95pb, 2.R.Moore 144/1156/84, 3.P.Mumford 144/1132/78. Gents Recurve – D.Cowin 124/786/29. Hereford – Ladies Compound – J.Gough 144/1166/86. Ladies Recurve – B.Harris 139/909/37. Long National – M.Elliott 70/438/14pb. Junior National – 1.J.Reaney 72/480/19pb, 2.J.Hill 71/429/12pb. Short Junior National – 1.J.Brookes 72/564/36pb, 2.72/544/33pb.