There was an excellent turnout at The Hub, Onchan on Sunday for the first Worcester of the season. The Worcester comprised of 60 arrows, shot in groups of five with a single face for Recurve and a five-spot target for Compound. A Gold scores 5 – with the maximum score being 300. The round was shot as part of the Club’s Scratch League.
The morning session did not start well for Records Officer Barbara Harris, who drew up her first practice arrow only to find she had neglected to put the sight on her bow. After making everyone wait while she did the walk of shame to rectify the problem, Harris commenced her practice shots only to find that she hadn’t put enough arrows in her quiver, which caused more mirth. Not to be outdone, Ralf Mitchell decided to sit out the second end of sighters, forgetting that there is no second end of sighters in the Worcester and had to make up five arrows at the half-way break. Chris Addy’s sight block was too high and had to be reset by Pete Mumford, James Hill’s pressure button needed to be adjusted and Peter Howland’s string came apart forcing him to change to his spare. Eventually the shoot got underway.
It was the usual triumvirate of Dave Moore, Pete Mumford and Rhys Moore on the shooting line in the Gents Compound division. Rhys frequently max’s the Worcester and was looking to do so again. He made an excellent start and forty-eight arrows in it looked as though another maximum score was his, until he put two arrows into the four zone. Another four in the next end meant that Rhys was three points off the maximum, but it was enough for the win. Dave Moore, using a hinge release instead of his usual trigger, and Pete Mumford, who was still fine tuning his new Hoyt bow had a terrific battle for second place. The Dave had the advantage after the first two ends, but Pete managed to snatch it back after the next two. It was all square at the halfway stage. Some near perfect shooting from Dave put him five points up going into the last two ends. Pete came back strongly but Dave held on to take second spot. Joy Gough had a disappointing round with two misses putting a dent in her score.
The largest field of the day came in the Gents Recurve, with Peter Howland, Ralf Mitchell, Danny Cowin, Alex Allen-Snell and Chris Addy all going for glory. Ralf had a relatively consistent shoot, which saw him add 23 points to his pb but sadly this was only good enough for last place. Chris Addy, shooting the round for the first time, showed some excellent form in the second half of the shoot to take fourth. Peter Howland added 8 points to his pb to secure third place. The contest for top spot was always going to be between the more experienced Danny Cowin and Alex Allen-Snell. While neither man was quite at their best, Alex proved to be the more consistent of the two and led from start to finish.
In spite of doing a passable impression of a moron to begin with, and having no direct competition in the Ladies Recurve, Barbara Harris settled for beating the men and recording the highest Recurve score of the day for the second week running.
Chris Crompton added 40 points to his pb in the Gents Barebow, to record a comprehensive win over Colin Moore.
In the Junior Gents Recurve, it was, the ever improving, Nathan Kinrade who took the honours against Toby Young and James Hill. Nathan added 38 points to his pb for the round.
Results Worcester: Gents Compound – 1.R.Moore 60/297/57, 2.D.Moore 60/294/56, 3.P.Mumford 60/290/50. Ladies Compound- J.Gough 58/279/47. Gents Recurve – 1.A.Alex-Snell 60/265/33, 2.D.Cowin 60/254/22, 3.P.Howland 60/233/18pb, 4.C.Addy 60/228/20pb, 5.R.Mitchell 60/218/18pb. Ladies Recurve – B.Harris 60/271/36. Gents Barebow – 1.C.Crompton 58/215/16pb, 2.C.Moore 53/182/9. Junior Gents – 1.N.Kinrade 60/244/19pb, 2.T.Young 60/224/9, 3.J.Hill 50/142/6.
Isle of Man Archery Club 