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Every year the Sway Bowmen calendar culminates in the annual championships.
As the weather starts to change and the days get shorter, the majority of archers move indoors for the winter league. The Championships are therefore one of the last chances the archers have to test their progress from the summer season. Experienced archers are always hoping for medals but many of those who completed beginner’s courses this year also take part, enjoying their first Champs and the kudos that they earn if they are able (and confident enough) to shoot their full competition distance. One of these, Bob Kahn, said ‘I just wanted to test myself and see if I could do it’.
This year the Championship was Windsor rounds. This is a total of 9 dozen (108) arrows shot as three dozen at three different distances - the under 50’s shooting 80, 60 and 50 yards and the over 50’s shooting 60, 50 and 40 yards. This is longer than our usual 6 dozen rounds and deliberately designed to test both the skill and endurance of the competitor.
28 archers took part in Recurve, Barebow and Longbow categories. They were lucky enough to have a mostly dry day and the sporadic showers did not dampen spirits.
Gathering for awards at the end of the day, all were tired but happy. There were awards for the best score in a category, the best handicapped score and the Lady Paramount prize (historically the Lady Paramount was the sponsor for the day). Winner of the Lady Paramount prize, Mark Redpath, was awarded the discretionary prize for the exemplary achievement of scoring a perfect dozen – 12 golds in 12 arrows. He said, ‘I’ve had so much fun, I wasn’t sure how I’d get on so I’m delighted’.
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Mushroom Magic!
Sway bowmen's biggest tournament of the year is the Mushroom shoot. You would be forgiven for wondering why they would want to shoot mushrooms, they're pretty inoffensive right? Actually the shoot was given its name because the field where it was originally held was full of mushrooms and although the club now has a large, beautifully kept range (with its own conservation area but no mushrooms!), the name has stuck.
This year saw 57 archers from 10 clubs across the South compete for attractive new trophies with wooden mushrooms in their design. Visiting archers come back year on year, some from a distance (West Wight archers being our furthest visitors this year) and some from much closer. Helen Smith from Waterside archery club near Exbury said, 'We love this shoot, it's like a home from home. We come for the hugs!'
All archers shot 'Western' rounds which comprise 4 dozen arrows at the first distance and 4 dozen at a second (closer) one. Competition distance was 80/60 yards, with archers aged 50+, new archers and juniors shooting closer combinations.
Sway members took gold in:
Open recurve – Matt Cooper
Open longbow – Brian Vaughan
Women’s barebow – Teresa Shelley
Junior women’s recurve – Skye Ecclestone
Open 50+ recurve – Nick Phillips
Women’s 50+ longbow – Karen Freeman
Women’s 50+ barebow – Victoria Hopkins
And Silver in:
Open 50+ longbow – Mick Hayman
Women’s 50+ barebow Carole Rawlings
They also performed well in the team competitions, taking Gold (Matt Cooper, Nick Phillips, Alistair Reeves and Richard Seaby)and Bronze (Skye Ecclestone, Jonathan Gay, Colin Powell and Joe Powell) in the recurve cartegory and Gold in the Traditional team event (Victoria Hopkins and Carole Rawlings).
As Victoria Hopkins said, ‘There’s always a great atmosphere at this shoot. I love the enthusiasm of the competing archers.’
Keith Gunn, from Sway, chipped in, ‘and there was even an ice-cream van!’.
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On a bright Easter Monday, Sway Bowmen held their second Red King shoot.
43 archers from across the South attended to shoot a two-way Western. This meant they shot 4 dozen arrows at 60 yards, and a further 4 dozen at 50 yards. The ‘two-way’ part is unusual because archers shot 3 arrows from one end of the field and 3 back again.
This shoot is primarily for long bows with other bow types graciously allowed to join the fun. This year the event attracted 14 longbows and their medals were awarded according to British Longbow Society rules, that is: Gold to the archer with most hits (scoring arrows of any denomination), Silver to the best score and Bronze to the most golds (bulls-eyes). Archers of other bow types were awarded on score as usual.
Last year’s winner, Brendan Reese, acted as ‘Lord Patron’. In the past this was the equivalent of a sponsor, someone who supplied a number of archers to the local Lord and saw that there was fair play. Brendan took his role seriously, dressing as the Red King (William Rufus), which turned out to give an interesting photo opportunity when he won again and had to be awarded his trophy by the Tournament Officer, Jem Mason (on the right of the picture), also dressed as the Red King! Jem joked that he wasn’t going to challenge Brendan for the crown as ‘Brendan is a bigger than me’.
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Every year Sway Bowmen take a team to Waterside archery club to compete for the Sway Water trophy. More friendly rivalry than grudge match, it is nonetheless hotly contested and the team are always hungry for the win.
On a fine and still day confidence was high and a party atmosphere prevailed. We’d had a couple of setbacks in the run up – Oli Cornish was shooting with a hastily borrowed bow having had his own longbow break in practice just 2 days before; our tournaments officer (and usually the lynchpin of away events), Jem Mason, was unable to take part due to (not archery related) injury and some of our elite archers were away at other shoots. However, a team of 23 had remembered the clock change and appeared in various states of alertness to take part.
Each archer competes as an individual in their own discipline. They shoot a ‘Stafford’ round which consists of 6 dozen arrows shot at an 80cm target at 30 metres. The top 16 of the 23 archers present were then matched against the top 16 from Waterside to ascertain who has won the interclub trophy.
It was a good day for Sway! Our medals were as follows:
Women’s recurve - Gold -Jodie Green
Silver - Charlie Ecclestone
U14 Women’s recurve - Gold -Skye Ecclestone
50+ Women’s barebow -Gold -Victoria Hopkins
Silver - Theresa Shelley
Women’s 50+ longbow -Gold - Jo Long
Men’s 50+ compound - Gold - Keith Cheshire
Men’s 50+ barebow - Gold - Bob Hughes
Bronze - Phil Green
Men’s longbow - Silver - Oli Cornish
Men’s recurve - Silver - Matt Cooper
Men’s 50+ recurve - Bronze - Nick Phillips
As the medals were awarded we became more confident and so it was not entirely a surprise when it was announced that the coveted (brand new!) trophy was awarded to Sway. Oli said, ‘in the words of the current youth, we ‘slay’ at Sway!’ A great start to the shooting season.