fter
the festive holidays, bell target shooting got underway on Thurs 3 Jan when the
competition for the Senior Shield took place at Wilmcote Social Club. Perhaps
the closeness to New Year explained the poor turnout as only seven shooters took
part and six were members of Wilmcote’s own shooting team. Bill Fleming from the
Avon Sports Bar made up the seven. Paul Clingan won the event with an unspoiled
two rounds of bulls scoring 25.3 and 25.4 to give him a total of 50.7 points.
Graham East was runner up shooting three bulls and two fours in both rounds to
score 48.4 points. Both Michael Clarke and Bill Fleming scored highly in the
first round with 24.2 and 23.2 but neither shooter could maintain their accuracy
with their second five shots.The first fixtures for the Webley Shield took place last Thursday. This year’s competition could see some surprises with some excellent shooting from the top teams. Clifford, current holders of the Shield, got off to a good start in their match against Avenue B who only had six shooters, four of whom are relatively new to airgun. Richard Mills and Haydn Taplin both shot 31 but the rest of the team hit too many threes for high scores. Clifford’s shooters had mixed fortunes with 33 from Ian Perkins and 32 from Jay Morris. Trevor Morris and Ben Huckfield both shot 31 and David Sibley 30 but Roy Brookes and Ben Osbourne who joined the team towards the end of the league season, struggled to keep out of the threes. Even though Clifford had a handicap of 9 points they still came out winners with 210 points to Avenue’s 208.
Avon seemingly go from strength to strength. Having won the league undefeated, they shot with a 20 point handicap against Binton B but undeterred, Steve Ray and Mark Ellis who has not shot for the team since November, both shot possibles. For Ray this was his first this season and for Ellis it was a career first. Adam Clarke shot 34, Alison McMillan shot 33 with her new FWB rifle, Bill Fleming shot 32 and Richard Groom and Karl McMillan both shot 30 to give the team 229 points. Binton did better than the team’s average of 204 with 31 from Sam Powell and Steve Hodges and 30 from Bill Gately and Ben Chamberlain. However a few loose shots saw the points from Avon get whittled away until Binton came down to 227 points which narrowly lost them the match.
MEB were at home to Binton A who were determined to pull back their 17 point handicap. They made a good start when Andy Smith shot his third possible in three consecutive matches. John Parrott shot 33 and four shooters each scored 31, Chris Reed, Alan Brookes, Michelle Dale and Neil Beningfield. Will Cemis was disappointed with his 30 but the team managed 222 points. MEB stalwarts Fred Williams 32, Kath Williams 30 and Paul Onions 31 all shot at or just above their league average as did Tim Onions 30 but the other members of the team had difficulty keeping out of the threes for them to get high scores. Together the team scored 214 which gave Binton a clear win.
Avenue A with only five shooters and 16 points in hand, were at home to Wilmcote who had seven shooters. Andrea Norris was first to shoot and together with three of her team, Graham East, Andrew and Paul Clingan all scored 33 points. John Maycock, Michael Clarke and Derek Powers all stepped up to shoot 30 which gave the team 222 points which was five points above their league average. Avenue had no reply with Jamie Clarke shooting 31, Paul Nixon Barron 30, Jo and Steve Everett both shot 29. Peter Mole was not as steady as he can be and did not have a high score. Avenue could only to shoot at the teams league average, managing 217 points but it was not enough and Wilmcote won.
Matches tonight Avenue B vs Avenue A; Avon vs MEB; Binton A vs Clifford and Wilmcote vs Binton B.
On Tuesday 21 January, the first round of the Pairs Competition will take place at Snitterfield Sports Club. Details of the draw can be found on our website www.sagl.co.uk