Tuesday 25 November 2014

Portsmouth City faces league champions, Havant


On the strength of four wins and a draw so far, this evening Portsmouth City faced the current league champions: the very capable Havant.

2013/14 Season
Wins (out of 16)
Aggregate
1st) Havant A
15
7813
2nd) Sarisbury
11
7790
3rd) Wickham A
8
7708
4th) Portsmouth City
8
7694

Last year PCRC placed 4th in the league.  This season we have managed to secure a win against Sarisbury and achieve a draw with Wickham.  However, the team went into tonight's match knowing that Havant wouldn't make this easy as they had produced an average team score of 490 against us over our last four meetings:


December 2012
(484) Portsmouth City vs Havant (490)

March 2013
(490) Havant vs Portsmouth City (489)

November 2013
(480) Portsmouth City vs Havant (491)

February 2014
(487) Havant vs Portsmouth City (475)

So how did the teams this time round?

Havant - 491

A. Perry (97)
A. Morley (100)
D. Cotton (100)
J. Alexander (96)
F. Slevin (91)
L. Hanna (96)
M. Reynolds (96)
T. Brown (98)
 Portsmouth City - 488

I. Cooper (100)
M. Nevatte (95)
P. Upchurch (94)
A. Nevatte (99)
S. Hart (97)
G. Scruton (97)
L. Haskett (88)
J. Rowe (94)

Reserve
D. Reeves (84)

Despite a respectable score of 488 (which bumps our season average up to 486.8) PCRC was 4 points short of coming away victorious.  Special congratulations to A. Morley, D. Cotton, and our own Ian Cooper for shooting possibles.

We come away from this one with our heads held high; it was a loss but by no means a disgraceful one.  Of course, congratulations go to Havant for their consistently high quality of shooting against us.

Next week is the last shoulder-to-shoulder match of the year before the Christmas break.  Home against West Meon.

Friday 21 November 2014

Portsmouth City away at Chichester


The Portsmouth City Rifle Club team is going from strength to strength in the shoulder-to-shoulder league, as was shown shooting away at the Chichester range last night - we achieved our highest team score of the season so far!

The scores were as follows:

Chichester - 480

N. Hayward (95)
W. Williamson (95)
K. Tulloch (96)
J. Peart (91)
R. Ellams (96)
N. Logan (98)
S. Jenkins (94)
D. Bishop (94)

Reserve
C. Wade (86)
Portsmouth City - 489

I. Cooper (99)
A. Nevatte (97)
P. Upchurch (96)
S. Hart (97)
M. Nevatte (100)
J. Rowe (89)
D. Reeves (89)



Special congratulations go to Marian Nevatte for a fine return to form by achieving a possible.

Next Tuesday sees PCRC shooting away again, facing the current league champions, Havant.  Bring it on!

Please remember this means that the club will not be open next Tuesday (25th November) but will be open on Wednesday 26th November instead.

Monday 17 November 2014

The Dave Nevatte Memorial Salver

This weekend saw the Annual General Meeting of the Hampshire Smallbore Rifle & Pistol Association.  Members from Portsmouth City were attending this year for a very special reason.

Dave Nevatte at Bisley Week
As many of you will know, we lost a stalwart of the club when our good friend and club secretary, Dave Nevatte, passed away in January.  We thought it fitting that a trophy be set up in his name and be open to all Hampshire shooters taking part in the British shooting event of the year and something that Dave attended religiously - Bisley Week.


The salver will be presented at the Hampshire AGM each year to the Hampshire shooter who achieved the highest placing in their division in the Bisley Weekend Aggregate (e.g. a shooter coming 4th place in D Class would beat a shooter coming 5th place in A Class).

This year the salver was awarded to Chris Dunn who achieved 2nd place in C Class.

Marian Nevatte presents Chris Dunn with the Dave Nevatte Memorial Salver

Thursday 13 November 2014

City vs Railway: The Rematch... of sorts


Last week, Portsmouth City Rifle Club were victorious in a match against Portsmouth Railway Rifle Club for the first round of the Arthur Lee Cup.  This evening, we hosted Railway again, this time competing against each other in Division 1 of the Portsmouth & District league.

While the Arthur Lee match gave each shooter two cards to show their mettle, tonight's match provided only one opportunity for shooters to prove their worth.

This is how the match went:

Portsmouth City - 487

G. Scruton (97)
M. Nevatte (97)
A. Nevatte (98)
P. Upchurch (97)
S. Hart (98)
L. Haskett (91)
I. Cooper (97)
R. Ashman (97)

Reserve
J. Rowe (92)
 Portsmouth Railway - 482

J. Ring (98)
M. Carter (94)
K. Hardyman (95)
C. Richard (97)
N. Toms (93)
J. Stockham (93)
C. Coles (98)
D. Bednall (91)


So while both teams improved nicely on their performances last week, PCRC managed to edge ahead and equal their best team score of the season so far!

The sharp-eyed among you may notice that five of our shooters scored a 97 yet two had to be counted out.  This was decided by looking at who took out the most spots.  The picture below shows two shots, both of them are in and scored the maximum of 10.  However, the shot on the left took out the spot whereas on the right, the spot in the centre is clearly still there.


Tuesday 11 November 2014

What is the Arthur Lee Cup?

Last Thursday saw the first round of the Arthur Lee Challenge Cup (we won!).  This is an annual knock out competition where clubs in the 'Portsmouth & District' and 'Southampton & District' Rifle Associations battle it out to represent their association in a Portsmouth vs Southampton final.

Each club puts together a 6-person team where all six shooters' scores count (known as '6 to shoot, 6 to count').  This differs from our other shoulder-to-shoulder matches where the P&D league follows the rule of '8 to shoot, 5 to count', where the best 5 scores of each team of 8 are selected (see examples of this here).

1st Viscount Lee of Fareham
The cup was donated by Arthur Lee, an MP for Fareham at the turn of the 20th century who went on to become 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham.  Lee was a man of some historical note being knighted, a peer of the realm, holding the office of First Lord of the Admiralty after the First World War (a position later held by Winston Churchill during the first year of World War II), and donating the Chequers estate in Buckinghamshire to the nation for use as the official residence of the British Prime Minister.

Arthur Lee's various titles and positions mean that, while the trophy is now known as the 'Arthur Lee Challenge Cup', it has in the past been referred to as the 'Lord Lee Cup' or simply the 'Lee Cup'.

The cup is currently held by Sarisbury.  However, Portsmouth City Rifle Club, in its various forms, has won the cup several times, the first time being all the way back in 1911 when the club was called the Borough of Portsmouth Rifle Club.  In fact, during Portsmouth City's domination of shooting in Hampshire from after World War II up to the mid 1960s, our club won the cup 12 times!

This photo (from the Portsmouth & District Smallbore Rifle & Pistol Association website) shows the cup with its 1914 winners, the 6th Hants Regiment Rifle Team.  Their captain, Charles A. Sandell was an important member of Portsmouth's Main VIII rifle team before the outbreak of war in 1914 and again throughout the 1920s.


Hopefully we'll be able to post a photo of the cup at some point as well as a complete list of winners which then answers the all important question... who's won it more often, Portsmouth or Southampton?

Friday 7 November 2014

1st Round of the 2014/15 Arthur Lee Cup


Last night saw the first round of this year's Arthur Lee Cup being shot at home against Portsmouth Railway Rifle Club.  The shoulder-to-shoulder match was different to our usual efforts in that the teams of six (as opposed to eight) had to shoot two cards each (as opposed to just one card).

The home team (PCRC) managed to achieve a victory.  While neither team was on particularly good form last night, there were a few examples of good marksmanship.

Portsmouth City - 1153

L. Haskett (93, 90)
S. Hart (99, 100)
P. Upchurch (96, 94)
A. Nevatte (97, 99)
G. Scruton (94, 99)
M. Nevatte (97, 95)
  Portsmouth Railway - 1139

J. Ring (96, 96)
C. Coles (94, 97)
C. Richards (97, 92)
M. Carter (96, 91)
J. Stockham (95, 96)
K. Hardyman (94, 95)

Special congratulations go to Sarah Hart for following up her 99 with a possible.

Next week we resume our normal match schedule and enjoy another home match with... Portsmouth Railway, again!  See you guys soon!

Wednesday 5 November 2014

The 2015 NSRA/ELEY National Postal Competition


This is just a quick announcement to say that the cards have arrived for the 1st round of the NSRA/ELEY competition.

Those of you who agreed to shoot this should now find the cards in your pigeon-holes.  There are 4 cards and they all must be shot on the same day and you must have them shot by 22nd December 2014.  As this does put significant demand on the firing points please don't everyone leave it to the last week.

The competition is a knock out where those who shoot well move on to a second round of 4 cards, and if you do well on those you make it to the final, which is a shoulder-to-shoulder outdoor shoot during Bisley week - definitely an experience worth shooting well for!

Last year Portsmouth City Rifle Club managed to field 10 shooters for this competition (with one making it to the final at Bisley) and I'm delighted to say that this year we have upped that to 12!

See you at the range!

Monday 3 November 2014

Round Up of the 2014 Summer Season

Over the summer months, the Portsmouth City Rifle Club's shooters have been keeping busy taking part in the Civil Service, Portsmouth & District, and Hampshire Summer Postal Leagues, as well as the NSRA/ELEY national postal league.  Outdoors, some of us took advantage of the good weather to participate in the Hampshire outdoor matches.

Overall it was a very productive summer of shooting that introduced a few of our newer shooters to postal competitions and allowed all of us to keep practising over the summer months in preparation for the 2014-15 winter leagues.


Civil Service Summer League

In the Civil Service leagues, we are delighted to report the following shooters won their divisions:

Phil Upchurch (Div 7)
Jonathan Rowe (Div 13)

Special mentions also go to the following shooters who came a very close second:

Stephanie Furness-Barr (Div 11)
Yanye Koji (Div 14)


Portsmouth & District Summer League

In the P&D leagues, unfortunately none of our shooters placed first in their divisions but some did manage to come second (or joint-second).  They were:

Mike McCormick (Div 8)
Jonathan Rowe (Div 9)
Yanye Koji (Div 10)


Hampshire Indoor Summer League

And in the Hampshire team summer league, our A team secured second place in the third division.  They were Ian Cooper, Marian Nevatte, Adam Nevatte and Gordon Scruton.  Many congratulations to Fareham's B team for winning the division.  We'll see you again come Summer 2015! :-)

Hampshire Outdoor Summer Shoot

Outdoors, Gordon Scruton managed to shoot himself out of D Class by winning the division and the Holdaway Cup.


NSRA/ELEY National Postal Competition

Finally, Jonathan Rowe, a relative newcomer to shooting managed to get to the final of the 2014 NSRA/ELEY national postal competition.