Sunday marked the return to shooting of the Club’s Records Officer after a string of health and personal issues had kept her out of play since early December’24. The shooting rota indicated it was either to be a Vegas or a Worcester and the Records Officer, mindful of her lack of practice, decided to be kind to herself and opted for the Worcester. This was not everyone’s taste, Dave Moore’s anguished cry of ‘I got out bed for this’ echoed round the hall as soon as he noticed the target faces. His objections were ignored.
Rhys Moore, who had been warned in advance, was more sanguine about shooting his least favourite round. Rhys’ dislike of the Worcester stems from the fact that he finds it too easy; frequently shooting the maximum score of 300. Sunday was no exception, and he maxed the score effortlessly and repeated the feat in the afternoon session. Fellow Compounds Andrew Westmorland and Dave Moore shot well with Westy dropping just 3 points, but a miss by Dave put him out of contention. Lone Lady Compound Aalin George lost out by 1 point after drifting into the four zone in the third end. After the session the Records Officer thought it might be wise to start scoring the X’s going forward, something not usually done Indoors, as a way of determining the winner against the inevitable time when all the Compounds would start to max the scores. The thought occurred too late however, as Steve Brew shooting in the afternoon session also scored 300, resulting in a tie. This marks the first time Rhys Moore has not had an outright win Indoors for over 4 years. Pete Mumford, also shooting in the afternoon session, found himself well off the pace and finished fifth.
Having not even picked up a bow for 8 weeks Barbara Harris was only concerned with making it through the shoot. As it was the hardest part turned out to be remembering how to put her bow together. Harris put in a solid round and seemed more relaxed and focused than she had done for some time. She took the win unopposed but was so tired that she needed help to take the bow apart at the end.
In the Gents Recurve Les Corran elected to shoot the 5-spot target used by the Compounds which put a huge dent in his score and dropped him down the leaderboard. The win as usual went to Johnathan Gordon. Richard Hainge, having lost out to Johnathan by 1 point in the last two matches, was guilty of trying too hard and was disappointed with his efforts, finishing second some 13 points adrift. Peter Howland found some consistency to finish third, Les came fourth and Jim Woodall fifth.
The Gents Barbow saw Colin Moore put in a personal best score to destroy his opponent Ralf Mitchell, while Ralf gave a textbook demonstration of how not to do it. He was reminded of the need to get into a reference point by Barbara late on in the shoot and for once he listened. Miracles still happen. Stan Gorry had a miserable time in the Longbow in which he was the only entrant.
Juniors Erin Hainge and Ethan Corran both did well in their respective division, with Ethan posting a pb and Erin recording the highest female Recurve score of the day.
Results Worcestor: Gents Compound =1.R.Moore & S.Brew 60/300/60, 3.A.Westmorland 60/297/57, 4.D.Moore 59/290/54, 5.P.Mumford 60/288/48. Ladies Compound-A.George 60/299/59. Ladies Recurve-B.Harris 60/253/24. Gents Recurve-1.J.Gordon 60/273/40, 2.R.Hainge 60/263/31, 3.P.Howland 59/213/17, 4.L.Corran 33/155/10, 5.J.Woodall 52/149/7. Gents Barebow-1.C.Moore 60/245/17pb, 2.R.Mitchell 51/146/7. Gents Longbow-S.Gorry 53/142/1. Junior Girls-E.Hainge 60/258/26. Junior Gents-E.Corran 59/202/6pb.
Isle of Man Archery Club 