Indoor Archery Season, 1995-1996

Dunstable Open Portsmouth, 15th October

First, by only two golds. Still, if I hadn't shot the eights, I would have won by two points. Not a bad start to the season.

Elswood Bottle Shoot (25m Fita), 29th October

A bit of déja-vu here; I spent the day before putting up a fence in the garden, which probably had some affect on the score (I did some heavy work in the garden before the Braintree Stafford in April, with similar results). I still managed to shoot a personal best, and came first.

Hawks A.C. Vegas, 29th October

Another personal best (which wasn't surprising, since it was the first Vegas I've shot), and Scottish Record (which also wasn't surprising, since nobody had claimed it before!). I came fifth, which wasn't bad, considering the quality of the competition.

Green Dragon 500, 12th November

A poor performance, I just couldn't seem to shoot any nice shots. An especially bad last dozen left me in fourth place.

Hertfordshire Championships (Fita 18m), 26th November

Just don't ask...one of `those' mornings. I wasn't shooting too badly, I just kept hitting nines instead of tens. I was second in my session, but my overall position won't have been that good (results haven't arrived yet).

Bedfordshire Championships (Fita 25m), 26th November

A nose-bleed half way through the round meant that I shot a couple of dozen with cotton wool stuffed up my nose. It didn't help, but I made up for the poor performance in the morning by shooting a new Scottish Record, and placing first equal (there was an exact draw between myself and Gary Hardinges on score, hits, tens, nines and eights, so the prize was split).

Clophill A.C. (Double Portsmouth), 10th December

Freezing fog and a late departure meant that I almost didn't make it to this tournament, and after the first session I was almost wishing that I hadn't. The cold in the hall affected everyone, and I shot my worst score of the season to take third place in the single round. The second session was better, I shot the best score of the day to take first place in the double round.

Compound Indoor Champs (Fita 18), 17th December

Worse than expected traffic made another competition at which I only just arrived on time, and took quite a while to calm down. This competition was shot on a three-spot face, and I found that my groups on two of the targets were consistently tight, but the third was poor. Overall, I could only struggle into third place in the gent's recurve section.

Kestrels A.C. (Worcester), 4th February

The cold weather and 'flu meant that I had had rather less practice than usual in the preceding month, but I managed to shoot an acceptable score to take first place, and two Scottish records (because nobody had claimed them before!).

Scottish Indoor Championships (Fita 18m), 25th February

Every time I have been to this competition, something has gone wrong, and this year was no exception. This time it was equipment; when I tightened up my V-bar, the thread on the extender sheared. I managed to get the thread out of the bow bushing, and bought a new extender at the shop which was present, but I couldn't free my V-bar from the old extender. I shot with a borrowed V-bar, which sounded tinny, felt bad, and at the end of the competition the thread from one of my rods got stuck in it. Needless to say, I was somewhat stressed out by all of this, and shot my worst Fita 18 of the year, coming third and missing the selection for the Scottish indoor team by one point.

British Indoor Championships (Fita 18m), 17th March

This competition went surprisingly well, considering that I added 1.5 inches to my draw length and changed from ACE 520s to ACE 470s the previous week. I came seventh, just beating my previous personal best, and it could have been even better if I hadn't been getting tired from holding too long at the end.