Simon de Montfort 2019 – Malvern Win

Yesterday in blazing sunshine and 32 degree temperatures Evesham hosted the latest episode of our longstanding match.  As always the atmosphere was incredibly friendly with Archers helping each other regardless of their club.

The match was settled on a combination of straight scores (3 Compound, 3 Recurve, 1 Longbow and 1 Junior with the addition of the best 5 handicap adjusted scores from each team). The last bit is important as it is the ingredient which really does make this a match where Archers of all levels of experience have an opportunity to make their contribution to the match result.

The Compound matches are always top notch and this year was no exception, Jacquie Holmes of Evesham showed why she was last years National Series ladies champion, by shooting 96/96 golds. Our own Dave Martel and Kathi Thompson and Evesham’s Tom Hennessy and Sarah Trout are regular sparing partners.  Arron had a peep site issue early on which provided an extra challenge in claiming our 3rd scoring place ahead of Jeff. Jeff don’t follow so many of my arrows out of the gold next time.  Evesham had strength in depth too, with Peter shooting 800 and Linda Haines, better known as a Recurve Archer of some distinction, but now a convert to the dark side, smashing her PB with a 798, with the help of some Martel words of wisdom.

Both teams had Recurve archers on County duties at Lillishall,  which allowed others to shine, Team Hurst had a great day for Malvern with both Beulah and Kevin contributing to both Straight scores and handicap adjusted scores. Thanks also to Dan Webb for our best adult Recurve score and Sonja for the best adult handicap adjusted score. I just managed to edge Laura for the 3rd Recurve place, though not with a score I want to remember.

Mac Crisp took our Longbow place and beat Stuart. Fang was not far behind Mac and ahead of Allan on this occasion.

I’ve already mentioned that Beulah had a good day and she managed to maintain focus despite shooting alone on her boss. We were delighted to see Ben and Annie tackling their first competitions, both can be very proud of how they represent us, lots of things learnt to take forward to other competitions in the future.  Ben really got his eye in at 20 yards and had the highest Handicap adjusted score of the day as a result.  Shooting with Ben and Annie was Frejia from Evesham who had the highest Junior score of the day, she scored for the target and set a great example of sportsmanship.

Some of our team had to depart soon after the match so missed out on the buffet and having their photo taken with the trophy. We still need to look to our current and perhaps the next generation of Juniors to get back on level par with Evesham who have a commanding lead in match results, but this is the first match which has not gone with home advantage for the last few years, so perhaps the tide has turned.

Thank you to our hosts Evesham and well done Malvern.