The Hub at Onchan was less crowded than usual with a number of regulars absent through various reasons, but those who did attend tackled the Worcester target in either it’s single or five-spot format. The Worcester is shot in groups of five arrows, on a target face that scores from 5 down to 1 on the single face. The five-spot target only has the two inner rings scoring 5 and 4 and is arrange like the dots on a die (that is the single form of dice – don’t say I never tell you anything), with the Compound shooters also scoring the x’s.
In the Gents Recurve the dishevelled Danny Cowin took on the terrifically up-beat Tom Rogers and the steely Richard Hainge. Danny just couldn’t find his timing, and he huffed and puffed his way through the morning session to come third. Things were neck and neck between Richard and Tom. Richard took an early lead, but Tom closed him down. Both men had misses, it looked as though victory had gone to Tom by a single point, until the Records Officer checked the score sheets and found a mistake in the addition – the scores were equal. However, on count back Richard had more Golds so took the win.
In the Ladies Recurve Erin Hainge and Emily O’Hara opted for the five-spot target while Barbara Harris stuck with the single face as she attempted to re-build her form. Barbara, unfortunately, seemed to have left her brain at home. She took to the shooting line only to find she had no arrows in her quiver, once she had some, she drew up to find that she had forgotten to put her pressure button in her bow, so still couldn’t shoot. Rather than hold up the proceedings she did without her end of sighters and launched straight into the shoot proper. It was at this point that she realized she still had her sight mark on from the Cub night where practice is conducted over half the distance. By the time she had dialled it in, the damage was done. Not the best of days. Erin Hainge on the other hand was in confident mood after her triumph at the Northern County Championships. Even with three misses, claimed victory by a margin of 50 points and posted the highest Recurve score of the day.
The Gents Compound was a three-man affair between Rhys Moore, Pete Mumford and Les Corran. The Compounds were scoring the x’s as a way of differentiating the scores in case of a tie, Golds not being good enough. Rhys Moore shot a perfect round of all x’s to continue his unbeaten run. The fight for second place went to Les Corran by virtue of x’s as both he and Pete tied on 290. Lone lady Compound Marie Hainge put in a solid round.
Peter Howland was the only traditional bow wielder to tackle the Worcester and so took the win unopposed in the Longbow division.
There was three-way shoot out in the Gents Barebow Portsmouth between Colin Moore, Chris Crompton and, the irrepressible, Ralf Mitchell. Ralf only occasionally remembered to get into his reference point before loosing his arrows, so it was no surprise he came last. Colin had too many misses early on to be in contention and Chris took the win by a margin of 98 points.
Stan Gorry had good day with his Tradbow, with only one miss to mar his Portsmouth score card.
Worcester Results: Genst Recurve- 1.R.Hainge 57/271/43, 2.T.Rogers 58/271/40, 3.D.Cowin 60/242/23. Ladies Recurve- 1.E.Hainge 57/272/43, 2.B.Harris 59/222/14,3. E.O’Hara 48/184/7. Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 60/300/60x’s, 2.L.Corran 59/290/32x’s, 3.P.Mumford 60/290/27x’s. Ladies Compound- M.Hainge 56/257/11x’s. Longbow- P.Howland 45/131/6. Portsmouth Results: Tradbow-S.Gorry 59/394/5. Barebow- 1.C.Crompton 60/521/15, 2.C.Moore 54/423/6, 3.R.Mitchell 56/365/4.
Isle of Man Archery Club 