ECAA

The championship was again hosted by West Essex Archers at their Belhus Country Park ground, near Upminster on the 16^th August 2009. The juniors shot Bristol rounds depending upon age with recurve and compound bow styles only being used.

According to my information it was reasonably uneventful weather-wise and a good days shooting was had by all participating archers. As usual the recurve part of the championship was competed for by nine county teams, and unfortunately again as usual, the number of compound teams entered was low at just three.

Essex fielded a full team for the Recurve tournament but struggled to find available Compound archers, managing to field only three archers, the minimum number required for a team. Any competition scheduled for the middle of the school summer holidays will always suffer from this problem and I am grateful for those archers who made themselves available for the County, some at very short notice.

I was not present at the match, but on holiday  – but as there was only an hour or two time difference I was able to keep my fingers crossed for the team who were ably looked after on the day by Mrs. Joan Ikel.

The outcome justified my confidence in the team – the Recurve team produced a fine first place , while the Compound team came second. Considering everything this was a great result by some very able young archers.

Results

            Place                Recurve                                    Compound

             1^st                          Essex               4586                Sussex             3518

            2^nd                    Norfolk “A”       4442                Essex               3230

            3^rd                    Sussex             4422                Herts                3151

County scores ( Bristol round)

Recurve                                                        Compound

Miss Sophie Cole (B3)   144, 1204, 101                        Mstr Anthony Christian (B1) 144, 1200, 100

Miss Louise Devlin (B4)            144, 1166, 86               Mstr Callum Wheatley (B3)       144, 1026, 50

Mstr James Howell (B3)            144, 1158, 88              Mstr Luke Wiseman (B3)           144, 1004, 47

Mstr Andrew Devlin  (B1)          144, 1058, 55

Miss Jodie Barnes (B2)             144, 1028, 48

Mstr Daniel Atkinson (B1)        144, 1020, 58

My thanks go to Joan Ikel for deputising for me, to all of the parents who came, supported and helped it run smoothly and of course to the County's Junior archers for their willingness to shoot at sometimes very short notice and above all their concentration and skills on the day.

Peter Walker

Team Manager