At a glance

Southampton Summer Clout – Saturday 7th August
Fiona Walsh – Ladies Barebow (140yards), score 19 (7th)
Janna Collier – Ladies Recurve (140yards), retired
Liam McDonnell – Gents Recurve (180yards), DNS

AC Delco Chris Sherwood Memorial – Western 14th August
Tom Reed (Gents Compound) – 856 (1st new club record!)
Sam Baldwin (Gents Compound) – 854 (2nd)
Sara Rubio (Ladies Recurve) – 762 (3rd new club record!)
Lloyd Fletcher (Gents Recurve) – 746 (5th)
Novelita Mondamina (Ladies Recurve) – 562 (9th)
David Williams (Gents Longbow) – 207 (10th new club record!)
Vale Amezcua (Ladies Recurve) – 460 (11th)
Ahmed El Maghraby (Gents Recurve) – 585 (21st)

ArcheryGB Youth Festival – Team H2Hs 15th-20th August
Kathryn Holyland (Recurve Women) – 9th
Rachael Smith (Recurve Women) – 9th
Abbie Hall (Compound Women) – 9th (new club record in seeding round, beaten in the Oxford Team Challenge later!)

National Flight Championships – 28th August
Tom Reed (Compound under 60lbs) – 475.80m (3rd)
Patrick Corning (Recurve under 50lbs) – 286.57m (9th)
Matthew Wellman (Recurve under 50lbs) – 257.75m (12th)

Oxford Archers Team Challenge – 29th August
Sara Rubio and Lloyd Fletcher (recurve) – 11th
Abbie Hall and Sam Baldwin (compound) – 14th (Abbie shot a new club record in the seeding round!)

Results can be found here:

Southampton Summer Clout
AC Delco Chris Sherwood Memorial
AGB Youth Festival
National Flight Championships (will be posted here when available)
Oxford Team Challenge

Match report

Like the previous month, August was jam-packed with shoots across the county and up and down the country!

To kick off the month, Fiona Walsh, Janna Collier and Liam McDonnell decided to travel the very long *cough* distance to Southampton AC to do their summer clout. For those that don’t know what clout archery is, there is a description on this website here. They set off without a Liam however, as lab work rolled over the weekend and he was unable to go in the end. Fiona and Janna enjoyed the day pinging arrows into the air, but as she hadn’t been able to shoot much due to work, Janna could only complete one round of the two. Fiona went onto finish the day with 19 points and 7th place.

The AC Delco Chris Sherwood Memorial was well attended by members of SUAC. It featured a compound-off between Sam Baldwin and Tom Reed, the latter eventually winning the competition, an Aussie (Lloyd Fletcher) hiding from the sunlight (much to the surprise of everyone else) and a hungover David ‘Boris’ Williams who had done a third of the Hobbit fellowship the night before and proceeded to do daft things. SUAC were defending the team title they won a year ago at the shoot. Sara Rubio, Lloyd, Ahmed El Maghraby and Novelita Mondamina made the 4-person team, but it wasn’t enough to even get on the podium for SUAC this time around. Sara however did return with a bronze medal and Lloyd a respectable fifth place after a poor first dozen. Vale Amezcua also shot well but due to work commitments hadn’t been able to shoot as much and was a little down on her previous performances. However, everyone had a really fun day in really really hot sunny weather. There was little wind and it was one of the best days of the year for archery!

Kathryn Holyland, Abbie Hall and Rachael Smith decided to go to the ArcheryGB Youth Festival. To best describe what happened, I have borrowed a lot of Rachael’s Facebook statuses during the week as I couldn’t have done a better job:
We have successfully completed the ranking round on day 1 with 3 personal bests and a club record! Somewhat unsurprisingly, we have all seeded in the top 16 – there were no more than 16 people in their categories – and have a score of 846. We look forward to some interesting matches tomorrow with some rather highly seeded archers and if nothing else, we have all of our equipment in tact still (touch wood) and we are simply on a camping holiday with friends.
Day 2 and we have a casualty. Grave news; Abbie has lost arrow number 3. It was a brave soul, happy to be flung at great speed to lands unknown, but unfortunately it fell in the line of duty today and is currently MIA presumed KIA. We have a single fletching to bury. Our thoughts are with the family, may they serve their duty unharmed tomorrow. In other news, slightly less grave, but no more positive, we are three men down in the individual head to heads, although all scores were positive. Kathryn takes home a victory prize of a lost golf ball and at time of writing, we are still healthy and not food poisoned from an attempt at fajitas. If all communication stops, please alert the appropriate and send help.
Day 3: BIG NEWS! Kathryn’s team scored a set point! Our goal has been achieved, there is no greater joy, we may as well go home now. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be for my (Rachael’s) own team, as we were just one point away from our very own set point. As with yesterday, we have all fallen at this great hurdle, although we have had an interesting experience with our first mixed team head to heads. Abbie in particular, had an interesting team with her fellow “youth” in the form of none other than Team GB’s Compound coach (we’re pretty sure, at least for the youths) and is now down to four shootable arrows. Today, we have finally started fitting in with the other youths as now, we have parents! (Or at least we did for a couple of hours, before we carelessly lost them). We are still alive after yesterday’s attempt, and success, at dinner, although Kathryn has now been broken twice and reduced to tears. For all those still concerned, there is no further news regarding arrow number 3.
And now for the epic final instalment:

Day 4: Disaster has struck the camp! Abbie is falling to pieces. This morning, I regret to inform you, we became a man down. Abbie managed to injure her neck and so could not shoot as she would not have been able to see the target. Unfortunately this meant that she could not shoot in the compound women’s team event. However, as they say, the show must go on! So Kathryn and I prepared ourselves for the team round robins this morning. I gained my first set points in the first match, although we unfortunately lost it in the end. After that, the first of the epic showdowns began. Kathryn vs Rachael, Rachael vs Kathryn, the tension was palpable. My team got off to an early lead going 2-0 up, only to have Kathryn’s team come back and win the next set. After much fighting and to-ing and fro-ing, it was 4-4 and a shoot off. Despite valiant efforts, it was sadly not to be for Kathryn’s team as I took the first victory of our tournament. Lunchtime came and Abbie was still broken – improving, but still broken. Kathryn and I were getting back in the zone in preparation for our ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN… The winner of this match would win a place in the semi finals.

[EXPAND THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN] My team took the early lead and ran with it as we went to 4-0 up. Kathryn’s team was not to be easily defeated as they came back to make it 4-2 before they were sadly jettisoned from the competition. That meant I would have either one or two more matches today, but would definitely be competing for a medal! (Can I get an ‘Ooooh’?) Going into the semi final we pulled into the lead before we began alternating set points meaning another shoot off. This time, tensions were even higher as these three arrows would decide who would be shooting for gold. As the beeps began, disaster struck again!  Having had several close calls throughout the day, the worst finally happened; a fly flew literally right into my aiming eye. I could not see. I was crying. I had twenty seconds to sort it out before I had to shoot. I did not sort it out in those twenty seconds. Sadly, having come so close, it was not meant to be as we lost the shoot off. But, fear not, for there was still the bronze medal match. This time, we got off to a stellar start, getting to 4-0 comfortably. Unfortunately, the combination of some changeable wind and my eye still playing up (and of course my teammates’ and opponents’ scores) meant that some dodgy arrows were shot, and the other team got it back to 4-4. A final shoot off. My team got 19 points. The other team got 19 points. We got a 4, they got a 3. We got an 8, they got an 8. We got a 7, they won with their 8. A good match, but an unfavourable outcome.

And thus ends our shooting at the youth festival, although we don’t leave empty handed, as we all got stickers for taking part 😜

You may think the tale ends there, but my friends, you would be mistaken for the camping trip is not over. There is more to tell. You may be surprised (although I would be surprised, if you were particularly surprised) but Abbie, has successfully hurt herself again. Twice in a day. It’s a skill. Somehow, she managed to burn a hole in her shorts whilst we were cooking dinner, and burnt her leg in the process. A round of applause please.

For those of you still concerned with the whereabouts of arrow number three, it is still MIA presumed KIA as the field party are now no longer looking for it. We dream that someday they may find it, but we do ask that you don’t hold your breath because may well prove to be fatal. Our thoughts are with the poor rugby player who finds it (probably in their leg).
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The National Flight Championships took place in an airport in Leeds, with Matthew Wellman, Patrick Corning and Tom Reed looking forward to pinging arrows into the air and then spending the rest of the day looking for them. Patrick and Matthew composed most of the next paragraph. After an uneventful journey departing Southampton at 4:30 AM that definitely did not involve a trip to the wrong airport, we arrived on the field as registration was closing. Patrick’s attempt to bodge his bow below 35lb failed. The judges were having none of his anchor being 2 inches in front of his face. Our quality protractor is the current envy of the field. With its’ help Matthew and Patrick shot over 250m, and Tom close to 420m. Lunchtime provided ample time to ‘modify’ our bows in a quest for more speed. However, one of Patrick’s ACEs had already been sacrificed to the flight gods, and Tom decided that fletchings were slowing the bow down so decided to experiment with bare shafts and 180 degree fletched spin wings (in blue and red of course). After lunch, Matthew decided to keep moving the clicker back and Patrick despite trying to shoot through his hand failed to improve his distance. A good day all around and some interesting conversations were had about making flight bows.

The following day, Lloyd, Sara, Abbie and Sam all went to Oxford to shoot in their team challenge. They all shot a WA720 seeding round first, before the two recurve (Lloyd and Sara) and the two compounds (Abbie and Sam) paired off in a direct knock out tournament. Despite being on antibiotics and not feeling well, Sara shot a very strong score of 556, as did Lloyd with a 571, placing them 11th in the seedings. Having had his back rod break the previous day, Sam shot 657, while Abbie shot 543 (a new club record), but qualified in 14th (and last) position. This meant in the direct Head to Head battles, Sara and Lloyd started against the 22nd seeds, who they dispatched quickly. Sam and Abbie came up against the 3rd seeds in the first round, and shot excellent sighters only for Abbie to shoot two misses in the first scoring end. As the compounds were done on cumulative score, this effectively ended their challenge. Sara and Lloyd went through to the second round where they came up against Birmingham Uni’s (higher seeded) team. After some tense ends, Lloyd and Sara took it to a shoot off. Birmingham’s archers both shot 8s, as did Lloyd, so it was down to Sara to pull out the goods! She pulled the arrow through the clicker and watched as it went straight into the ten! This meant that they went through to the quarter finals to face the 3rd seeds from Oxford Archers! Lloyd and Sara won the first set before succumbing in the next two. Needing a win to have another shoot off, they could only draw, and so lost 5-3.

 

All in all, an exhausting August of archery has led to several new club records and new competitions being shot. Hopefully September lives up to the same high level of competition too!