At a glance
Portsmouth round results:
Abbie Hall, Senior Ladies Compound, 522, (1st)
James Murawski, Senior Gents Longbow, 364 (1st)
Barnie Sagoo, Novice Gents Barebow, 372 (2nd in overall and novice, PB)
David Williams, Senior Gents Longbow, 240 (2nd)
Ziheng Guo, Senior Gents Compound, 572 (3rd)
Tom Reed, Senior Gents Compound, 553 (4th)
Nick Wilson, Senior Gents Barebow, 313 (5th, PB)
Stuart MacFarquhar, Senior Gents Barebow, 303 (6th, PB)
Michael Sessions, Senior Gents Compound, RTD
Match report
The second SEAL non recurve match had been on, then off, and then through a last minute miracle, on again. A minibus was hastily arranged and Tom nominated to drive it. David was on his way back from Sheffield on the Sunday, and barely had 5 minutes in Southampton before jumping onto the minibus to go back up to Guildford. On the bus was everyone except Nick and Abbie, as the former wanted to rev his engine as we went through the tunnel on the way up to Guildford, so he drove himself and the latter was at home and being dropped off in Guildford for when we got there. Fitting all the bows around each other was fun, but as there weren’t many of us on the bus there was plenty of space. The drive was uneventful save for Nick revving his engine and driving past us in the tunnel, only to realise he was in an average speed check zone and had to slow right down. Also, Stuart started a discussion on how one would string a flatbow if it was inside someone, in a not so subtle way, but threatening to do just that.
When we got there, Tom pointed out a 24 hour Tesco’s near to the sports park. As we were early we decided to park up, go to the loo in the sports park and then wander over to Tesco’s. This was a great mistake. First, there was a queue for the men’s loo causing consternation in all those that had to go. Then there was discussion about how pitiful the hand dryer was, before we set off back to Tesco’s. We go to the road and had a choice: go over the muddy field to get to Tesco’s or go around the pavement to it. We went through the field. This was the second great mistake. Before we knew it we were at Glastonbury without the music (and associated other things) sliding across the field. Barnie had worn new shoes to this shoot so that he could be presentable, they were ruined. To cap this all off, when we got to the Tesco’s, we discovered it closed, as Tom had misread the sign which said it closed at 4pm, and we’d arrived at 5:30pm. Back to the sports park we went, although this now meant that the Costa’s in the sports park would likely now be closed, so no food was to be had that evening.
We got in to find that Reading had arrived, as had the rest of Surrey who were setting up the hall. We all set up and got going as soon as possible. There was much silliness during the shoot although Abbie realised after her first two dozen that she was doing really well and on for a personal best. Ziheng said that his bow was feeling too light and was struggling to get the bow to hold steady, whilst Michael got to half way and decided to take all the bits and bobs off his bow and retire so that he could mess around playing about with his compound. James started very strongly, but had a few weaker shots later on, whilst David was pinging arrows into the net much more than he would have liked. Barnie got over his ruined new trainers to shoot a personal best by the end of the evening, gradually warming up and getting better as the night went on.
However, the night belongs to the barebow buddies Nick Wilson and Stuart MacFarquhar. Stuart took the lead early on, but, like the tortoise and the hare, (Nick is the tortoise here, Stuart the fairly hairy hare), Stuart started gloating and shot a 10, followed by a miss, much to Nick’s amusement. Nick’s steading accruing of points eventually had the better of Stuart and Nick ended up winning their own separate duel by 10 points.
Post shooting, Katya, the tournament organiser, gave everyone some balloons. Instead of shooting them, it turned into an all vs all round of volleyball-oon with Sussex uni, before David got the flatbow out to use as a battleth to hit them away. There was a large circle around David by the end of this as no one dared go near him with his American Flat Battleth. The results were announced, and there were some stand out performances from Barnie shooting his PB and Nick and Stuart coming 5th and 6th in the barebow category, despite shooting the flatbow. As we had to get the minibus back by 11pm, we had to all jump in (with Abbie this time in the minibus) and head off.
The next SEAL Non Recurve is extracted from BUCS Indoors results. Going into that final leg, Ziheng and Tom are equal on SEAL NR points, but Ziheng is ahead on aggregate in 3rd place. As Abbie is the only lady entered for SEAL compound in BUCS, she is already the SEAL ladies compound champion! For the barebows, Nick is second and Barnie is 5th after their performances at SEAL NR 2, but as neither are shooting BUCS, James Murawski is the only entrant from SUAC that can climb the SEAL NR barebow podium, currently sitting in 6th. With James shooting barebow at BUCS, this means David (despite also not shooting BUCS) is the longbow champion for SEAL this year, as no one can catch him.
The next shoot however is at *drum roll* Surrey this coming weekend, so expect another silly match report then!
Full results can be found here
