Annual Outdoor Tournament - Unusual Finish!

Checking the weather forecast the night before, it was worrying that the Met Office had issued a warning of heavy rain and that the Earn was on flood watch. Checking the weather again before leaving in the morning, the weather report from the Hosh showed over 13 mm (1/2") had fallen already on Sunday and the puddles across the road on the way to Crieff confirmed that there had been a lot of rain. Even though it was so wet all the entrants turned up and we put out the targets and got ready to shoot in the rain.

Scoring the first end caused problems with keeping the score sheets dry and then the rain became very heavy. Abandoning the shooting and trying to arrange another date was considered but it was decided to suspend shooting for 30 minutes to see if conditions would improve, which they did allowing us to start shooting again at noon.

Erl Bisset shot a six gold end at 60 yards, and then Alex Cargill shot six golds in the next end.

Best gold medals were awarded for the last end at 60 yards with Caroline Waring being the senior archer to get closest to the centre and Cameron McLeay getting the best gold for the juniors.

The day continued with dry spells and light rain with Alex and Erl scoring six gold ends at 40 yards.

After the final end had been shot and scored, the score sheets were collected and checked.

It quickly became apparent that there was an unexpected result with Erl and Alex having the same score of 720, the highest score for Gentlemen and also higher than the 1st Lady.

Tie breaking then goes on the number of hits, which was 90 for both archers, and then the number of golds. Both had 54 golds and were declared equal.

The Scottish record for the American round is 758 (set by Findlay Haddow while a member of Crieff Archery Club), so a score of 720 on such an inclement day is shooting of a high standard.

But there is only one Strathearn Herald Shield, and it goes to the overall champion, so Alex and Erl agreed to shoot another end at 40 yards as a tie-breaker.

Both scored the same so a second extra end was shot with Alex getting one more gold than Erl and taking the shield.

The ladies results were also close with only 3 points between Caroline and Jane.

The other results were:

Best Gold (Junior) Cameron McLeay
Best Gold (Senior) Caroline Waring

1st Junior Calum Ballantyne
2nd Junior Cameron McLeay

1st Lady Caroline Waring
2nd Lady Jane McLeay

Novice Gentleman Gordon McLeay

1st Gentleman Erl Bisset & Alex Cargill
2nd Gentleman John Purdie
3rd Gentleman Douglas Bentley

Prizes were presented by Caroline Boxer of the Strathearn Herald.

So another visit to the Trophy Shop is required to get duplicates, a most unexpected outcome.