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Archery is a year round sport. Some archers pile on layers of clothing until they can barely move and continue shooting throughout the winter months. However, for those who don’t like the cold or when, as this year, there are prolonged periods of rain, it is possible to shoot indoors. Your local club – Sway Bowmen – meet at Brockenhurst College across the winter, shooting a variety of rounds of 20 yards or 18 metres. At the end of the season nine of their members were brave enough to try their skills by competing in the Hampshire County Indoor archery Championships in Eastleigh.
Eastleigh is a very large competition and in a field of 166 archers from across the south it was hard to know who was a Hampshire archer and therefore competing for the coveted Hampshire Champion title. Matt Cooper said, ‘I kept looking on Ianseo (the website where scores are uploaded in real time) the whole day and just thought, ah, if I get silver or bronze I’ll take it gladly but, no! I got the gold!’ Matt is now the Hampshire Recurve archery champion!
Matt was joined in the honours by Skye Ecclestone who also achieved a gold medal. The remarkable thing is, that because of the way archery rules are structured Skye competed in the Under 14 women’s recurve competition despite being only 11 years old and despite only starting archery in 2024!
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Sunday 8th of March we held the 2026 Club Indoor Championships in Brockenhurst College Sports hall.
We enjoyed a throwback to the 80s music selection, great company and a slightly lower than optimum temperature.
For the main feature we shot a Portsmouth round, with medals on offer for category scores and handicap adjusted achievements. There were also additional side hustles for Parent and Child, Couples, Mixed Pairs, Best Golds and Colour Prizes.
Following the main shoot, as an experiment, all mixed pairs took part in a knockout Head to Head shoot off (Olympic Style). It was great fun and we will definitely do it again next year (with adjustments to make it a bit quicker)
Full results and medal table are below, but honours go to Victoria Hopkins and Bryan Garney, a mixed Barebow partnership who reached the final of the head to head and then took an historic win over a not too shabby mixed Recurve partnership of Jodie Green and Simon Ecclestone.
Indoor Champs 2026 - Medals and Awards
Indoor Champs 2026 - All Scores
Congratulations to all who earned medals, trophies or chocolate. Well also to all those who gained some bonus points towards their Winter League tally.
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This weekend saw the annual linecutter shoot at Sway Bowmen. Some 30 archers shot a 6 dozen round in the blustery sunshine. Archers chose their distance to match their skill, or possibly their bravery, given how difficult it is to shoot at distance in windy weather. (I wimped out on the excuse of my big, ungainly...fletchings!
This tournament is a little different from the usual as it is not the best score that wins, it is the most linecutting arrows – that is, the most arrows that touch or break the line between two scoring zones.
In the end two archers had the same number – 12 – but the prize was awarded to Ian Ovenden who had the most variety of lines hit. “Though they were mostly between the one and two,” he laughed.
Dave Errington was the runner-up, and having been his scorer, I can attest to there being very little variation in the lines he was cutting!! (For those new to the club, Dave is a compound archer and his arrows were all grouped in or near the gold).
As usual, thanks go to Hannah and Jem for the organising and field captaining - hope the shoulder recovers soon, Jem.
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Sway Bowmen held their first beginner’s course of the year across the Easter weekend. 12 hardy souls braved the somewhat changeable weather to start their archery journey. As an added incentive to hone their accuracy, the fledgling archers shot at painted eggs suspended in the middle of their target faces. These proved trickier to hit than anticipated as they were simply deflected unless subject to a direct hit. There was a lot of friendly banter and encouragement/commiseration until all were finally breached. Everyone, students and coaches alike, went home to their Easter eggs tired and happy.