The Cambridgeshire outdoor County Championships took place on 19th June 2022 at Girton College, hosted by Peacock Archers. CCB send a number of archers, ranging from defending champions to first-time competitors. One of the latter was Mark Yard, who provided the wonderful summary of the day below.
CCB retained the ladies’ compound title, and came second and third in ladies’ recurve and gent’s compound. They also came second in the club team competition. Full results can be found on ianseo. Thank you to Patrick for the photographs.
Enjoy the day was the aim for my first ever archery competition, my first ever Metric 1 1440.
Arrived early and checked in smoothly overhearing, “Have you put your name on you arrows?” and the response from the archer behind me, “Didn’t know I had to do that and I don’t have a pen” – I was now feeling rather clever that I had bought a pen with gold metallic ink to adorn my 12 newly bought second hand Easton X7 Eclipse arrows with my name – shame I had only shot with the XX75 Platinum – yes I speak conversational Easton arrow. I setup my bow – put on my forearm bracelet, matching black fingersling and brown leather tab – warmed up my already over elastic body.
Phweet – call to practice
My inner coach said, “don’t change your routine and hopefully survive with at least some arrows in the 70m target and maybe more hits than misses – a tall order as I had only established my first ever 70m sighting two days previous.
Sighters having been ‘thrown down’ I was ready to repeat in the heat of timed competition – and so my sighters were incredibly predictively prophetic of sticks to come.
Having quickly established a high miss-low miss rhythm I settled in for the marathon day of 144 arrows.
I had to adapt quickly so I glanced over at Lydia, a picture of statuesque calm, for inspiration and saw also Anke popping arrows in the yoke and oh was that Chairman Jack that dropped an arrow at the shooting line (I was probably seeing things through my pollen glazed eyes) and there was Patrick materialised in club salmon [Ed – the chair maintains we wear red shirts] to offer moral guidance and to sneakily memorialise my behind the target arrow retrieval technique by obtaining photographic evidence – I felt better seeing my salmon coated teammates so calm while the arrow cherubs toyed with their focus – so I redoubled my efforts (adjusted sights, changed arrows, changed my stance, began to take the full 3 minutes to shoot 6 arrows) and actual scores began to be recorded under my name – I even recorded an X.
Lunch, the glorious weather and above all the jovial banter and helpfulness of fellow competitors and judges made the atmosphere relaxed yet competitive.
The shooting completed, Peacock Archers – competition organisers – treated all to delicious cake before we all headed home.
Oh yes I forgot to mention so absolutely splendid that I was included (wisely without my knowledge) in a team entry and thus I have a medal from my first ever archery competition. Thank you Anke, Lydia, Jack and Patrick you made my day.
