At a glance
Portsmouth round results:
Sara Rubio, Senior Ladies Recurve, 550 (1st)
Lukas Bastow, Novice Gents Recurve, 524 (1st)
Matt Story, Novice Gents Barebow, 460 (1st)
Stuart MacFarquhar, Senior Gents Recurve, 536 (2nd)
Callum Anderson, Novice Gents Recurve, 501 (2nd)
Nick Wilson, Senior Gents Recurve, 535 (3rd)
Rachael Smith, Senior Ladies Recurve, 494 (3rd)
Hari Kulendran, Novice Gents Recurve, 500 (3rd)
Kathryn Holyland, Senior Ladies Recurve, 491 (4th)
Sergiu Rusu, Novice Gents Recurve, 452 (4th)
Team Results:
Senior Team: Sara, Stuart, Nick, Lukas (N), 2145 (1st)
Novice Team: Lukas, Callum, Hari, 1525 (1st)
Match report
For the second time in a week, SUAC headed up to the Surrey Sports Park in Guildford for a SEAL match. This time however, to shoot with recurve bows. Returning for the second time in a week were barebow buddies Nick and Stuart, who this time duelled with their recurve bows instead! The benevolent Katya of Surrey University had seen the sexual tension between the two the previous week and decided that they should once again shoot on the same boss, although she did ask for “no sexy times on the line please”.
For this match, we were lucky as the other team (Kent) were unable to field a full team, which meant we had extra spaces, so last minute call ups to the side were handed out to Rachael and Matt. Also travelling with the team were Tom Reed, who decided that he wanted a drive up to Guildford and back for a laugh and also David Williams, the competitions officer who had a target list to write. We were also to be joined by Abbie Hall when we got there so she didn’t have to drive all the way back to Southampton in one go.
On the day itself Tom phoned up David an hour before telling him of his plan asking to go in cars, but a minibus had already been booked. Confused, David headed to the range to be greeted by Sara (who had already picked up the minibus) and Tom and Nick in their cars. It turned out that Nick also wanted to go for a little drive as well. This meant that there was plenty of space in the minibus, and Nick got to once again get the opportunity to rev his engine up on the way through the tunnel towards Guildford.
Upon getting onto the minibus, Lukas and Stuart put on the “You’re a wizard Harry” youtube video. The minibus trip was thus perpetuated by lots of silly discussions, including – but not limited to – a cheesey smell coming from Nick’s car: “he camembert to smell it any longer” (more on that later) and a discussion on the size of Stuart’s… well um… this is a family friendly website. David revealed that he was wearing a Uni of Portsmouth Archery Club shirt which said traitor on the back, much to the annoyance of Lukas, who was regaling Stuart, Callum and Sergiu about the secret service and the official secrets act. This led to a discussion on how best to kill Stuart if Lukas told him something he wasn’t allowed to talk about.
Upon arrival at Guildford, two things happened. One, Stuart’s keychain had gotten stuck between two of the seats. This led to Stuart being permanently attached to the minibus from the inside, so the rest of us decided to head off to the loo. We did however reopen the door again, only to find him still attached and starting to panic. At this point he had got his keys off the chain but was still stuck but eventually managed to unclip himself from it. However, the chain was stuck and wouldn’t budge so it had to be left there.
With all the fun of that going on, the second thing of note was Nick’s arrival in his car. Whilst normally writing these match reports, I don’t tend to comment on the run of the mill things that happen in competitions, but this time Nick’s arrival in his car was worthy of mention, as he had been heating up cheese toasties and garlic bread on his engine on the way up, wrapped in tin foil. The cheese puns now made sense to everyone who had not originally been in on the joke and Tom joyously started pulling out cheese toasties and offering them to anyone that went by.
Slightly put off by a toastie heated up by a car engine, some people went inside to the Costa in Surrey Sports Park for sustenance, whilst those with toasties joined them so that they could sit down and eat. Whilst queueing, Nick tweeted Sainsbury’s complaining about the lack of cooking instructions for engine roasted garlic bread. Sara, who had up to this point not seen the Portsmouth shirt David was wearing, wanted to wear it to and changed in the Costa in Surrey Sports Park, taking David’s shirt from him (he had another one on underneath, she didn’t).
At this point, you would have thought we would have gotten to some archery wouldn’t you? Well here it is…
We went back to the minibus to fetch the bows at which point Lukas and Callum disappeared, probably for a tryst in the toilet that SUAC frequented so much in last week’s match report. Once found, they picked up their bows too and we were off inside, only to have to wait for some footballers to get out of the hall who were having a lot of fun punting balls as hard as they could which nearly hit some of the archers. Surrey uni started setting up and although SUAC tried to help, it was a case of too many cook’s spoiling the broth, or in this case, too many clueless archers trying to put targets up without having a clue where they go or what way round they go, as SUAC use danage, not straw.
Eventually, the hall was set, the barebow buddies (now bro-curves or recurve reprobates, take your pick) were together at last and started trying to out do each other end for end. Sara was bouncing as she’d just had coffee and was on the same target as Katya from Surrey. After a short confusion from one target about who was A, B, C and D details, which David sorted out, all went well for a while until “JUDGE” was called from across the hall. David, who had up until this point been working and chatting to an old mate of his from Surrey uni who had come along found himself wearing his Portsmouth shirt again (Sara had given it back) and therefore the only impartial judge in the hall. This became a constant thing from target 1, which included Katya and Sara, partly because they kept shooting edgy tens, but partly because they liked annoying David and making him walk across the hall.
Part way through the round Rachael’s bowstand decided to stop being magnetic, spilling her bow onto the floor with a load thud. When trying to shoot it again, she found that the limbs had come out as had other parts of the bow. Several archers, including Kathryn and Sara were struggling to find their normal form. Stuart and Nick had managed to go into the last end equal on score, with Stuart just pulling out the win by one point, which reversed last week’s 10 point win for Nick in their own private battle. Callum had come back from some problems with his equipment to shoot 501, just pipping Hari on 500, but Lukas shot a solid 524 to make all three archers on the team above 500 and the first 1500+ SEAL score of the season by any university. The seniors, having faded at the end still shot a solid 2145 together although several were down on their usual best. Matt put in a solid barebow score too, shooting 460 and everyone packed down when it was finished, glad it was over!
The results were announced, SUAC had won the novice and senior match by clear way from Surrey and Kent. We quickly compared to the other teams and found that the novices had won the overall SEAL leg by nearly 100 points, and the seniors were safely in second, beating East Anglia, but 30 points away from London in 1st. The result takes Southampton’s novices and seniors up to second in the SEAL league, leap frogging Brunel and Imperial respectively, a position they will hope to hold onto now until the end of the year and possibly close the gap on current leaders Imperial novices and London seniors.
Post results, Tom left with Rachael early to get home sooner. Everyone else got on the minibus except Abbie who, despite getting headaches from the sound of Nick’s car, decided to go into Nick’s cheesey car. The trip home in the minibus was just as filled with discussion as the trip up. This time, the discussions included Lukas’s chat up lines at BUCS, itchy Sara, Stuart being a naked mole rat from the neck down as we discussed Lukas being hairy and referenced GBBO and the “sticky carpet”. I’m not allowed to mention what else was discussed as it’s rated R, only to say the quote of the night is on the SUAC Facebook group. We eventually got back to Southampton and piled out of the minibus. Abbie looked like she had a headache and was tired. However, the minibus was parked up and everyone went off their respective ways into the night.
Full results can be found here
SEAL tables can be found here
