New Century Bowmen's Weekend 17th & 18th July

for the first half of the shoot. Then the gusting wind started to blow randomly from all directions for the last part of the shoot. On top of the strong winds the archers had the additional problem of the frequent showers again (although the sun managed to break through the clouds occasionally for a couple of seconds). Once again Jack got the highest score, and set more county and regional records this time for a Double Bristol.

True to form, as the archers were putting their equipment away after the shoot, the wind dropped, the showers stopped, and conditions went much milder in general. Typical!

The Wirral Archers St. George, Albion, and Windsor’s shoot proved to be yet another successful day for the Nethermoss Juniors. Highlight of the day was when associate member Lauren Mayor shot her new compound bow for the first time at competition, and totally obliterated the National record for a Windsor round. Harrison Moss may also have set a National Record for a Short Junior Windsor round, with the new GNAS ruling of national records now open to those juniors under Twelve years of age. We are awaiting

confirmation from GNAS over this claim. Oliver Johnson shared the target with Harrison, coming second to Harrison after a friendly close fought competition.

The Junior National Outdoor Championships at Lilleshall started with the Fita/Metric rounds on Saturday 3rd July. Jack Grogan led the Metric 2 round from the start then fell into second position after a particularly bad end at 4 dozen arrows. He was unable to regain his leading position again, and ended up collecting the second placed medal. Associate junior member Lauren Mayor fought a gallant battle in the Metric 3 compound round, but was plagued by a faulty bow. Regardless of the bow fault Lauren was able to win the third position medal.

Sunday 4th July was the day for the Bristol/Hereford/York rounds. Severe winds battered the Lilleshall grounds and archers struggled to get a decent score. Jack wasn’t on the leader board after the first dozen, but managed to quickly regain lost points, putting him second place by 4 dozen. Now Jack was in his stride, the Judges called for a ‘Comfort Break’. The Judges wisely decided to reduce the shoot to Western rounds, but the momentum Jack had gained before the break had diminished resulting in him remaining in second position for the rest of the shoot, and collecting the second place medal again on the final day.

Laurens position was constantly changing on the leader board, and was in first position at midway in the

final half of the tournament. Unfortunately, although doing exceptionally well with a misbehaving bow, Lauren had a few bad arrows at the end of the competition resulting in her coming forth. We are glad to say that Lauren has now taken delivery of her new bow (it was actually ordered to be delivered and set up in time for the JNOC, but there was a problem with the delivery), and is doing very well indeed with it.

The Lancashire Archery Associations Junior Championships were held on the 27th June at the Wigan RUFC , which is also the home ground of Orrell Archers. The competition, as last year was bathed in glorious sunshine.

Nethermoss junior Tom Ward (14) had just moved over to shooting a Compound bow within the last few weeks, and had entered the shoot with no previous competition experience. He not only won his category in the Bristol II, but also set a Nethermoss Record, claimed a 900 Rose award (just missing out by a few points on a 1000 award), and to finish the day, he got his first ever Six Gold end on his final six arrows… Not bad for his first competition.

Another of our juniors, Jack Grogan (15), continued with his latest round of successes by winning the Bristol II, Recurve category. In doing so, Jack has upped the County record and the Club Record that he already holds.

Associate member Lauren Mayor (14), shot to her usual very high standards even though her bow developed a malfunction of having no back stop. Setting county records is nothing new to Lauren, so it

was no surprise when she smashed the previous County record, adding her name to the Bristol III round, and setting a new record on the Nethermoss records page. Once again, another successful day for the Nethermoss Juniors.

A special mention must go to Anne Clayton of Orrell Archers, who besides cooking all day in the sweltering conditions, had the foresight to order Ice cream for the day, and very much appreciated it was too. Not only that, but Anne also made a shed full of Ice Cubes, and Ice Pops which were freely distributed

to the competitors and parents alike. No two ways about it, the Orrell field crew and Anne in particular were certainly the unsung heroes of the day.

Yet again, Nethermoss and its Associate members had a very successful weekend of shooting bringing home several awards and personal best scores. In fact, all who attended gained an award.

FITA: on Saturday 12th June a World Record Status FITA Star Round was shot; the weather was good with sunny skies and light winds. Kirsty Robb one of our Associate members won the Ladies Compound section shooting a personal best with her new (gold) bow. Melanie Hoe came 2nd keeping Kirsty on her toes throughout the day. Vlada Priestman another of our Associate members won the Ladies Recurve. Jack Grogan won the Junior Gents section. It appears that the other local juniors saw Jack’s name on the target list and never arrived. The male Recurve shooters did not finish on the podium but achieved high placing in the results. The Male Compound section was not represented.

YORK: Sunday started sunny with light winds but rained heavily during the afternoon. Melanie Hoe only managed another consecutive 2nd placing but had some consolation by pushing Kirsty into 3rd place. Dave Ball won the Frank Hughes Highest National Local Archer not in the first three award. Tony Hoe won the Most Golds Local award. The male Recurve shooters, as the day, before can hold their heads high by finishing in the top 8 placings.

Jack Grogan was called to represent the N.C.A.S. (Northern Counties Archery Society) in a regional shoot against the E.M.A.S. (East Midlands Archery Society) held at Wetherby, Yorkshire Saturday 6th June. It was a very hot and humid day and getting hotter and more humid as the day progressed. Jack shot fairly well all day and his name was always on the leader board. He won the Metric 2 round, and the NCAS team of which Jack was included won the team prize also.

The Welsh Whit Western shoot held at the Corus Archery clubs ground Deeside, was held in perfect conditions, bright overcast sky, not too hot, and nothing more than a slight breeze. Scores were expected to be high, and Nethermoss junior Jack Grogan who had entered the competition against the adults managed to shoot the highest recurve gents score, beating all the adult recurve scores in the shoot (for the second year in succession).

At the presentations, gents were called up to collect their medals for winning the third, and second places, Jack was not very pleased when his name was not called out to collect the medal for first place! The ‘error’ was pointed out to the organiser, and the medals were then re-presented to the archers, Jack this time receiving the Gold medal for coming first in the gents adult recurve. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the Welsh being beaten by English archers at the Battle of Orewin Bridge (also known as the Battle of Irfon Bridge) in 1282, but they certainly weren’t too keen to be beaten by a modern day English archer, particularly a 15 year old English archer…

Lancashire, England