Chessington Bowmen

Our juniors took gold (Richard White) and silver (Gareth Trimble) at the Surrey Autumn longbow championships at Woking on Saturday 6th September. Despite the windy and very wet conditions, Peter, Bob and Gareth all improved their scores from the spring longbow shoot. Bob has the top CB score of the day with 246 points.

The annual club championships will take place at the club on Saturday 20th of September. Gents shoot an Albion round, ladies and longbow a Windsor round, Juniors shoot short or junior Windsor according to age. More details to follow soon Club membership fees are now due, they remain the same as last year. Cheques should be made out to Chessington Bowmen and handed to Brenda Bradford. Ask Brenda if you are not sure what the fees are.

Georgina Speller and Duncan Garner are both Junior County Champions. They were both shooting at the Surrey Outdoor Championships on July 20th and both brought away the gold medal and trophy for Metric IV recurve class; Georgina in the girls and Duncan in the boys.

For the adults, this was also a FITA Star, the first time the event has been world record status. Indeed one archer, Nichola Simpson equalled the world record (unofficially) for the 30m distance (357 points out of 360) and broke the European Master compound record.

Our own archers were also shooting in the Men's FITA round. Simon Buchanan took the 4th place medal in the recurve, Richard White took bronze in the Men's Junior Recurve, Peter Wood took bronze in the Men's longbow, Bob Bulbeck took the 4th place medal in the Men's longbow, and not forgetting Kevin White who also shot in the Men's Longbow but just missed out on the medals.

Several archers said that this was the best FITA Star they had ever been to. One of the innovative features was the playing of music between the shooting, entry was also available on line. The event was organised this year for the first time by Andrew Trimble and several Chessington Bowmen (and parents) were helpers at the event.

See Event photos

Gareth Trimble was a double medallist at the British Junior National Outdoor Championships on the 4th and 5th July. In the Junior FITA Star on the Saturday he won silver in the Boys U16 longbow division. On the Sunday in the British Junior Championship he won bronze in the same division. His score of 292 in the Bristol 2 round on the Sunday was also a PB.

Richard White was also competing in the Men's FITA round and the York round. Richard was hoping for another 2 JMB scores but equipment failure put paid to that when one his limbs went out of alignment. He was able to shoot on the Sunday thanks to loan of some limbs from GB archer Tom Barber.

The weather, yet again, was awful with strong winds and heavy showers both days.

Duncan Garner won an individual bronze medal at the London Youth Games as the Kingston team took 7th place. The team was without previous medallists, Gareth and Richard, who were at the Junior National Champs, so a top ten finish was a good result. Duncan, shooting in his first LYG, did very well to get in the medals. Min Young Kim(Amie), James Robbins and Annand Majathia (all Chessington Bownen) also shot in the Kingston team along with Jess Cosson (Spelthorne). Jess won gold in the girls Windsor round.

In blustery wind conditions at the 30th Sheila Brown memorial shoot, hosted by Mole Valley Bowmen, the archers scores were well below their best. Star of the day for Chessington Bowmen was Gareth Trimble, who took gold for the boys longbow on the Bristol 2 round. Also taking part were Simon, Noreen, Bob, Kevin and James. Richard shot his 6 doz at 100yds on the Men's York round but then retired at lunch time as he was unlikely to achieve his goal of a second Junior Master Bowman score. There are pictures of the shoot on the photo album page.

We wish Gareth and Richard the best of luck as they head up the M40 to Lilleshall in Shropshire (the home of Archery UK) this coming weekend. They are both representing Chessington Bowmen at the Junior National Outdoor Championships. Last year Richard came home as British Junior Under 16 champion for boys recurve. This year he will be shooting against the very best British junior recurve archers on the York round. Gareth is shooting his longbow in the U16 boys category.

Chessington Bowmen Juniors came away from the Little Acorn junior shoot at Guildford with two individual gold medals and a team silver. Rich and Duncan won their age groups, Georgina also had a high score and these three combined to make the Chessington Bowmen Junior team. The team had a combined score of 2061 and only lost by 14 points to Edge Grove School from Hertfordshire.

James also shot a decent score and Gareth chose to shoot the longest distance of 60yds/50yds with his longbow. Gareth likes a challenge.

Richard, Andrew and Simon shot in the Rivernook double FITA 70m on Saturday 14th June and in the Olympic Head to Head on Sunday 15th June. It was held at Imber Court in Thames Ditton and is where the Surrey FITA Star will be held in July.

The Saturday was a double FITA 70m and Sunday morning was another 70m round, which was also the qualifying round for the afternoon event. All three shot personal bests during the weekend, although Andrew would like to point out that he shot three consecutive PB's on the three 70m events, plus a 4th for a double round. Not that this made any difference as he got knocked in the first round of the head to head competition in the afternoon, Rich and Simon got knocked out in round 2. The standard was very high this year with several GB squad members shooting

There were no medals for Chessington Bowmen at the Spelthorne Open BUT Richard White scored 1032 (a personal best) on the York round. This is Richard's first ever Junior Master Bowman score. He only just missed the adults medals by 2 points right at the end, however JMB is a fantastic achievement.

Simon Buchanan scored a credible 885 on the York, Andrew Trimble scored 659 (a season best) on the Hereford and Kevin White scored 73 with his longbow, also on the Hereford.

Richard White took the 5th place visitors medal on the York round at the Middlesex County Championships, scoring 966 points. The shoot started in heavy rain and finished in a strong head wind. Kevin White (longbow) and Andrew Trimble also shot in the Hereford round. Andrew and Kevin both found the conditions difficult to cope with and were not at their best.

The following day was scheduled for the Middlesex FITA Star event. Conditions were even worse with both a strong gusting headwind and torrential rain first thing in the morning. As there was little prospect of an improvement in the weather the event was abandoned without a shot being fired.

The Wand shoot is a strange affair, quite different from our regular competitions. We shoot at a wooden stick about 4 inches wide and 6 feet tall. Men shoot at 100yds, ladies at 80 yards and juniors at 60 yards. Just to get a hit at all is a considerable achievement. Several Chessington Bowmen finished the 2008 competition with no hits (null points as they say in the Eurovision song contest)

There are also two small spots on the wand, red for longbows and black for recurves. Best hit of the day on the spot wins a wooden arrow trophy. This year the overall longbow trophy was won by Gareth Trimble, who hit the red spot early on in the competition. He also won a gold medal for best Junior under 18 at longbow with a score of 4 hits.

There was considerable excitement at the end of the day as there was a tie in the Junior under 18 recurve between Richard White and Natalie Trussier (Mole Valley), with 12 hits each. The shoot off was just like an Olympic Head to Head. tension mounted amongst the excited spectators as Richard and Natalie shot alternatively and traded hit for hit, with Natalie pipping Richard to the gold medal, 3 hits to 2.

For quite a while it looked as though Gareth's score of 4 might beat his dad, Andrew, who was shooting recurve at 100 yards. However, Andrew pulled it out of the bag to equal Gareth's score of 4 on his last arrow. Gareth was allowed a lift home, which had been in some doubt up to that point.

Bob Bullbeck was the King of the adult bent stick brigade, with a score of 2. Kevin, Tony, Noreen and Peter also shot in the longbow competition. Teresa scored 1 in the ladies recurve.