A little bit of Give and Take

Martyn Phillips
Archers of Raunds

Yesterday saw the staging of the Jolly Archers 17th Indoor Tournament and my second competition away from home and the first for Lauren. With the Sat Nav set we headed over to St Ives and found the centre with no problems, parking was plentiful and although the leisure centres reception was unmanned, the competition registration desk was reasonably easy to find.

The day started late for us as we had only entered for the third of three sold out sessions. So turning up just after 15:00 we signed in and handed back Bradley’s Junior Boys trophy from last year as he was at EMAS training this weekend. Looking over the balcony behind the archers, we watched the closing of the second session with archers shooting recurve, longbow and compound. It was wonderful to watch from a great viewing point as some of the regions best archers finished their rounds.

Behind the viewing gallery was a canteen where plenty of people were buying refreshments. Although we did not try the canteen, it would clearly be a useful addition to the venue for those archers choosing to shoot a session A and C double, especially if they had travelled some distance to the venue like we had.

Finally 15:45 drew close and we moved downstairs into the main hall. The layout was different to our hall at (Archers of Raunds) AOR. Rather than shooting lengthwise, we shot across the hall giving a much wider view of twice the number of bosses that we are used to. However, once we were set up and had been addressed by the judges, focus turned to our sighters and all of the other bosses disappeared from our focus – now it was just you and your target.

I had been warned that the venue can be a little cold at times and although I wore my AOR polo shirt and sweatshirt, the temperature was ideal for me. I’m not sure what it was like earlier in the day though!

In recent shoots, I have had great sighters that have been quickly followed by a dozen disastrous arrows. For this reason, I was quite pleased to have my sighters fall around the gold, pretty much north, south, east and west by the time the second set had been shot.

Was this a good sign, or a sign of worse to come?

Thankfully, for me, it was the former and my overall performance was on par for me, although very well down on a medal position. 472 is just not going to cut it and again that illusive 500 was not to be found. However, it was great to be shooting on a boss where two of the top scoring archers shot. Their target was replaced half way through the shoot as the middle was shot out and calling my scores each end after their seemingly regular calls of 10,10,10 or 10,10,9 was somewhat demoralising. Maybe one day – I can dream.

I felt sorry for Lauren. The day before she had been working with one of the county coaches and the bow had been stripped of her v-bar and it was clear that her clicker was no longer set correctly as her technique improved through the training session. She’d also been working on grouping her arrows in the gold on a large target face, so moving back to a Portsmouth added some extra pressure.

However Katie, Lauren’s friend and shooting partner since joining AOR, was on top form following two great practice sessions at the club. She went on to score a personal best and she took the Junior Girls Recurve trophy home with a top score for her class on the day.

Overall, the day very enjoyable, everyone was very friendly and new acquaintances were made. I must say a big thank you to the gentleman from Cambridge who gave me some herbal pain relief for my shoulder, which I managed to pull at the start of the last dozen arrows. Without it, I don’t think that I’d have finished the shoot and the last half dozen or so were nearly all shot through the clicker . I’ve now sourced my own bottle (not an easy task in the UK as it comes from Poland) and I’ll be keeping it in my kit box.

If I had to find something about the venue that you should be wary of, it would be the amount of space available behind the shooting line. This is only my second away shoot and we might be spoiled at AOR behind the line, but I found myself tripping around peoples bows fairly frequently coming off the shooting line. Maybe this is a feature of indoor shoots and one that dissipates when we all head outside in a few weeks time. However, looking along the line of bows in their rests it was not difficult to find several wobbling as people moved around them. My advice would therefore be to get there early and get your bow bag and other paraphernalia against the bag wall, keeping the forward viewing area free for your bow only. I’d also encourage non participating people to use the viewing gallery (balcony), not only does it give a great view of the shooting archers, but it keeps you out of the way.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, all in all the venue and the shoot were very enjoyable, well staged and managed and Lauren and I look forward to heading over to The Jolly Archers again next year to have another try at the medals – I can only dream.

So, AOR started with giving a trophy back and ended the day taking another one home, along with the Gold and Bronze Junior Girls Recurve medals. All in all, a sterling performance by our junior girls.