A baker’s dozen of archers turned up at the Hub, Onchan on Sunday to compete in a Portsmouth round as part of the Club’s Handicap League. It was nice to see young Brandon Gough, the Club’s only junior Compound, and Recurver Jacob Brookes in action again in the Sunday Leagues. Recurves shot on a single face target while the Compounds shot on the smaller triple face.
As far as scratch scores went Rhys Moore easily took compound honours ahead of Pete Mumford, who is still trying to fine tune his bow. Joy Gough had a bad start to the day as she forgot to keep her thumb on the safety catch of her Evo trigger as she drew up. The result was that that the arrow went off prematurely, belly flopping off the launcher and clattering down the hall. A second miss at the end of the shoot saw her finish well down the leader board. Joy’s grandson Brandon, on the other hand, enjoyed an excellent shoot which saw him add 37 points to his pb for the round and take overall victory into the bargain.
On the Recurve side of things, Barbara Harris took idiocy to new heights when, not bothering to put her glasses on, she managed to screw her sight block into the wrong place. It is difficult to over- emphasize how virtually impossible it is to do such a thing, and only someone with Harris’s recent track record of fruit-loopery could have done it. Fortunately for her, she discovered her mistake during the sighters and was able to rectify it before the scoring started. It was very tight over the first two dozen between Barbara, Alex Allen-Snell and, the newly returned, Simon Kenyon who got off to a terrific start. Leading after the first two dozen, Simon began to think about how well he was doing, lost his timing and saw his dozen totals rapidly decline. He finished two points up on his previous weeks total, but it should have been more. Simon requires one more round before he can be issued with a handicap, so his name could not be included in the League table. Alex had a pretty steady shoot, but it was Barbara who found her stride to take scratch honours and finish joint third with Peter Howland after the handicap was applied. Peter Howland had been quietly getting on with things at the far end of the line, but a final dozen burst, saw him add 20 points to his pb to break the 500 barrier for the first time.
Colin Moore showed a welcome return to form as he got within three points of his Barebow pb. Colin was pleased with his progress this season and he finished second overall.
The four-way fight for Junior Gents scratch honours went to Toby Young who finally seems to be running into some form. Nathan Kinrade was a little off his usual best, a handful of 5’s putting a dent in his score. James Hill has yet to find his range indoors and seemed rather distracted on Sunday. Jacob Brookes lack of practice showed, and he finished last in both scratch and handicap terms.
Results: Portsmouth Handicap- 1.B.Gough 1463 (58/482/4)pb, 2.C.Moore 1454 (60/504/8), 3.B.Harris 1445 (60/562/29), =3.P.Howland 1445 (60/510/10)pb, 5.A.Allen-Snell 1442 (60/547/22), 6.R.Moore 1440 (60/577/37), 7.T.Young 1431 (60/521/17), 8.P.Mumford 1428 (60/560/20), 9.N.Kinrade 1413 (60/483/6), 10.J.Gough 1411 (58/532/13), 11.J.Hill 1389 (59/476/11), 12.J.Brookes 1370 (60/440/7). S.Kenyon 59/513/19pb.
Isle of Man Archery Club 