The UK & Ireland Field Archery Championships 2014

The UK & Ireland Field Archery Championships were hosted by my home club, Pentref Bowmen this year at our course in Llwynypia overlooking the Rhondda Valleys.

I was involved with the work party in the weeks leading up to the competition, cutting back the severe overgrowth to lay on 2 x 28 target courses and it took a lot of work but we got the field ready in time and got all the targets out and into place.

There was an excellent turnout for this shoot and the competition was going to be tight. I was shooting the Hunter course on the first day, and despite a poor forecast the weather was pretty good to us. It was mostly clear and quite warm, with only the odd passing shower in the afternoon.  I shot well for the most part but dropped a few 17’s during the afternoon on the longer/steeper targets so finished up on 532 points, placing me in 4^th place by 3 points.

Taking shelter in a shower! Yes its a handbag umbrella
but when you need it and you 'aint got it, you sing a different tune!

 

On day 2 we were on the Field course and the groups were sorted by score, so I was in the top group with the archers I was directly competing with. I didn’t have enough points to make 1^st or 2^nd but I was pushing for 3rd place and going into the last few targets I closed the gap and pulled one point ahead on the penultimate target.

Our last target however was right in front of the clubhouse – a 50 yard shot with everyone that had already finished watching adding to the pressure!  We got our arrows away and I lost the advantage, finishing on exactly the same score. It was down to X’s and my opponent had more than me on day 1 so he took the honour and I missed the podium by the narrowest of margins.

Even so I was still very pleased, I had 2 great days of field archery and put in 2 solid GBM scores close to my personal bests so I couldn’t ask for more and the medals went to those who earned them. I didn’t come away empty handed however, as I was part of the team competing for the Home Nations trophy and we won!

 

The winning Welsh team!
 

Last year we won the trophy in Scotland and it was the first Welsh win in 21 years, and we successfully defended it for 2014 so we kept the trophy and each team member received one of the limited edition gold WFAA UKIFAC 2014 medals. All told, not a bad weekend!