The skies were overcast but it was hot and humid at Greeba on Sunday. Eleven archers turned up over the course of the day to shoot a Metric round as part of the Club’s Handicap League. The round of the day was a WA1440, with both Joy Gough and Barbara Harris electing to shoot the Gents distances of 90/70/50/ and 30m. Those who could not stay for the whole day shot rounds appropriate to their age or skill level.
The scratch scores were then subject to handicap. Archers shooting exactly to their handicap end up with a score of 1440, anything above or below gives an indication of how well or how badly the individual has done.
Joy Gough and Barbara Harris decided to shoot the Gents distances as a bit of fun, but it turned out to be anything but. Soggy conditions underfoot had forced Joy to dash home to Baldrine to pick up some waterproof footwear and her late arrival meant she only had time for one end of sighters. This, coupled with the fact that she was aiming at the flag to make the 90m distance, caused her to have two misses which put a dent in her score. Joy then forgot to move her sight bar for the second distance and had another miss. A relatively poor 50m put paid to Joys chances of breaking 1200 and she was glad when the ‘fun’ was over.
Barbara Harris had an even worse time of it. A two week break from shooting caused by an exhausting family holiday did nothing for Barbara’s already poor form this season. While she could blame her misses at 90m on the fact that she was aiming at the trees to make the distance (forgetting to shoot one her arrows didn’t help), she had no excuse for the string of misses she put in at 70m. The most that could be said about her afternoon performance was that all her arrows made it to the target. Barbara recorded the lowest scratch score of the day and after handicapping came in dead last.
As far as the Gents were concerned Pete Mumford had a flying start with a Six Gold end, Danny Cowin was delighted with an opening score of 44, and Rhys Moore couldn’t buy a 10. Normality resumed on the second end with Danny back to his usual scowling self as his scores went south, and a string of 7’s topped off with a 4 saw Pete relinquish the lead to Rhys. Danny spent most of the day reminding Pete to bring the scoresheet with him to the target. Rhys equalled his pb for the round but after handicapping found himself in sixth place. Pete put in a season’s best score to finish eighth overall, while Danny came in tenth.
Simon Musgrove turned up for the morning session and shot a pb for the Long Metric (90&70m) to take third place overall. Colin Moore added 6 points to his pb for the Long Metric I (70&60m) to secure fifth place. In the afternoon David ‘Rip Van Winkle’ Moore managed to make it out of bed and, with careful prompting about when it was his turn to shoot, added 14 points to his pb for the Short Metric (50&30m) which put him in seventh. Peter Howland likewise added 27 points to his pb for the Short Metric to take fourth place. Junior archer Toby Young shot a tidy Short Metric 11 (40/30m) to take second place after handicapping.
The day however belonged to Ralf Mitchell who added an incredible 123 points to his pb for the Long Metric II (60&50m), to take the overall win by quite a margin.
Meanwhile Tilly Ashton took her bow on holiday and competed in the Cheshire Archery Association WA1440/Metrics UK record status event. Tilly was shooting with new limbs that she had picked up en route, and without the customary support from her coach Uncle Dave Berry who was recovering from surgery. The new limbs meant that Tilly had to find sight marks as she shot. Tilly made a good start but wasn’t happy with set up and reverted to her old limbs in the afternoon session. In spite of difficult wind conditions which caused a couple of misses Tilly came first in the u14 Ladies category with a score of 142/1204/33/10. This was Tilly’s third Junior Master Bowman score of the season which qualifies her for next year’s Junior Masters tournament.
Results Greeba Metrics Handicap: 1.R.Mitchell 1497 (68/396/3/1)pb, 2.T.Young 1450 (72/562/5/4), 3.S.Musgrove 1449 (72/623/15/6)pb, 4.P.Howland 1448 (63/384/1/0)pb, 5.C.Moore 1446 (72/640/20/5)pb, 6.R.Moore 1433 (144/1339/70/24)=pb, 7.D.Moore 1416 (72/648/24/8)pb, 8.P.Mumford 1402 (144/1257/45/20), 9.J.Gough 1367 (140/1165/30/7), 10.D.Cowin 1363 (143/1024/16/7), 11.B.Harris 1277 (132/885/8/3).
Isle of Man Archery Club 