Thursday 30 April 2015

The Duttson Cup final comes down to graduated gauging... against Sarisbury... again!

On Tuesday, members of the Portsmouth City squad took part in the semi-final and final of the Duttson Cup.  This particular cup dates back to 1936, when it was donated by William Noel Duttson, the then-president of Portsmouth & District Rifle League (and also director of Portsmouth Brewery on Admiralty Road).

William Noel Duttson (1935)

This year it was Fareham, Portsmouth Railway, Sarisbury and Portsmouth City through to the semi-finals and, as always, we had both the semis and the final on the same evening and all on a neutral range, the Tipner indoor range, kindly provided by the HMS Excellent Rifle Club.  By virtue of drawing names from a bag, PCRC first faced Portsmouth Railway.


Here's how the semi-finals went:

Portsmouth City - 389

I. Cooper (99)
A. Nevatte (99)
M. Nevatte (97)
G. Scruton (94)
Portsmouth Railway - 372

J. Nicholson (91)
N. Toms (93)
N. Perman (94)
J. Stockham (94)

Fareham - 384

P. Randall (96)
T. Read (97)
D. Shepperd (95)
D. Spendlove (96)
 Sarisbury - 387

G. Barber (95)
T. Gleed (96)
M. Guille (98)
P. Pearce (98)

This brought about the same final as we had last year: Portsmouth vs Sarisbury.  Last year it came down to graduated gauges; this is where the two teams' scores using standard gauges come out as the same - graduated gauges put the shots under a harsher spotlight and tell us who came closer to centre.




Portsmouth were the victors last year but would it be the case this year too?


Portsmouth City - 390
(.25G score - 384)

I. Cooper (97) (96)
A. Nevatte (99) (96)
M. Nevatte (97) (95)
G. Scruton (97) (97)
 Sarisbury - 390
(.25G score - 389)

G. Barber (98) (97)
T. Gleed (95) (95)
M. Guille (98) (98)
P. Pearce (98) (98)

So, as with the Portsmouth & District shoulder-to-shoulder league this year, Portsmouth had to settle for second place to Sarisbury.  Well done, Sarisbury.

The Duttson Cup has taken pride of place on our trophy shelves in the last few years and we'll be sorry to see it leave us... but we'll get it back next year!

Current 1946 Duttson Cup Trophy replacing the 1936 trophy presumed lost during the war

Overall Portsmouth City hasn't done too badly in this competition, in fact we were the first ever winners of it!

Inaugural Winners of the Duttson Cup (1936).  The captain, H. E. G. Abrams is sitting; standing left to right is L. G. German, H. V. Young, and E. S. German.

1936 - Portsmouth City
1937 - HMS Victory
1938 - HMS Excellent
Suspended during World War II (1939-1945)
1946 - Portsmouth City Police
1947 - Civil Defence
1949 - Portsmouth City
1950 - Portsmouth City
1951 - Havant
1952 - Portsmouth City
1953 - Portsmouth City
1954 - Portsmouth City
1955 - Portsmouth City
1956 - Portsmouth City
1957 - Portsmouth City
1958 - Portsmouth North End
No Competition (1959)
1960 - Portsmouth City "B"
1961 - Portsmouth City
1962 - Royal Marines "B"
1963 - HMS Collingwood
1964 - Portsmouth City
1965 - Portsmouth City
1966 - Portsmouth City
1967 - Portsmouth City
1968 - Portsmouth City
1969 - Royal Marines
1970 - Fareham
1971 - HMS Excellent
1972 - Havant
1973 - Havant
1974 - Havant
1975 - HMS Excellent
1976 - Havant
1977 - Havant
1978 - Havant
1979 - Havant
1980 - Havant
1981 - HMS Nelson
1982 - HMS Nelson
1983 - HMS Nelson
1984 - HMS Nelson
1985 - HMS Nelson
1986 - HMS Nelson
1987 - HMS Nelson
No Competition (1988-1991)
1992 - Portsmouth City
1993 - Portsmouth City
1994 - HMS Excellent
1995 - HMS Nelson
1996 - Chichester
1997 - Sarisbury
No Competition (1998)
1999 - Havant
2000 - Sarisbury
2001 - HMS Excellent
2002 - Portsmouth Railway
2003 - Havant
2004 - HMS Excellent
2005 - Sarisbury
2006 - Havant
2007 - Sarisbury
2008 - Havant
2009 - Havant
2010 - Havant
2011 - Sarisbury
2012 - Portsmouth City
2013 - Portsmouth City
2014 - Portsmouth City
2015 - Sarisbury

For those of your keeping a tally, PCRC (21 wins), Havant (15), HMS Nelson (8), HMS Excellent (6), Sarisbury (6), Royal Marines (2), Chichester (1), Civil Defence (1), Fareham (1), HMS Victory (1), HMS Collingwood (1), North End (1), Police (1)

Wednesday 29 April 2015

Portsmouth City win the Hayes Cup!


The good news just keeps on coming from the Civil Service Sports Council's Target Shooting Association.

After winning the second division of the winter postal leagues, Portsmouth City qualified for a shoot off competition against the winners of the other divisions.  Thankfully our team managed to keep it together and were victorious, getting the good name of Portsmouth onto the Hayes Cup as a result!  Here were the winning scores of the team:

Ian Cooper (100)
Adam Nevatte (96)
Marian Nevatte (98)
Gordon Scruton (97)

Well done to Ian for shooting another possible when it really mattered!

While a shoot-off against winners of different divisions may sound incredibly unfair (who can imagine a Division 6 team standing a chance against the winners of Division 1?) this was not decided by gun score but by percentage improvement.

What does 'percentage improvement' mean?

Put simply, each team was competing against their own previous scores in this knock-out, not each other.  For this competition, our best five rounds were taken:


1st Round
2nd Round
3rd Round
4th Round
5th Round
6th Round
7th Round
8th Round
9th Round
Ian
97
93
97
99
95
95
95
96
95
Adam
96
97
97
99
98
98
96
98
98
Marian
100
99
100
98
97
97
97
95
98
Gordon
99
97
97
95
98
98
99
97
96

(392 + 391 + 391 + 388 + 388)/5 = 390.

Using these rounds, the team's average was 10 (remembering that we focus on points lost).

The exact percentage improvement equation for this competition works as follows:

(Average minus Score) divided by Average, multiplied by 100.

So in our case,

( (10 - 9)/10 ) x 100 = 10%

Our Hayes Cup score of 391 (or 9) shows that we shot a full point better than our average which equates to a 10% improvement over our average.  

Ok, but how did PCRC win?

In the end, it was all down to one point.  Had any of us scored anything lower than what we got, we would have been third or worse.  Fortunately, our improvement was better than those of the other teams:

1st: Portsmouth (10.00%) (9)
2nd: Yealmpton B (1.16%) (17)
3rd: Bicester F (0.94%) (84)
4th: Plympton C (-1.83%) (49)
5th: Benfleet (-6.90%) (29)
6th: Darlington (-13.45%) (27)

Tuesday 28 April 2015

Results of the Erika Lawrence Memorial Competiton

   

As some of you may remember, many of our shooters took part in a postal competition earlier this year in memoriam of Erika Lawrence, the Dorset ladies captain.  We're delighted to understand that the competition, in which just under 150 shooters took part, raised £300 for the Weymouth RNLI.

Ten Portsmouth City shooters took part and congratulations go to Mike McCormick for winning Class E (shooting 96, 98, 96).

Well done, Mike!


Monday 27 April 2015

Recent Portsmouth & District Team Results


In the lull between the winter leagues having finished and the summer leagues just getting started, there hasn't been much news recently but here's a bit of old news that I didn't get round to posting.

The 2015 Potter Bailey
Portsmouth & District vs Worthing & West Sussex

In a previous post, I provided a match report on the first round of the Potter Bailey: which is an annual competition that runs between Portsmouth & District and Worthing & West Sussex rifle associations (both making up a team from their member clubs).  The first round in February saw P&D narrowly lose to W&WS (1945 points to 1953 points).

Here's how the second round went in mid-March.

 Portsmouth & District - 1944

A. Nevatte (99, 99)
I. Cooper (97, 99)
S. Dismore (97, 98)
T. Gleed (96, 96)
G. Barber (97, 98)
J. Barber (98, 96)
M. Frost (96, 95)
P. Pearce (100, 97)
A. Perry (96, 98)
D. Cotton (91, 100)
C. Richards (97, 95)
A. Morley (94, 97)
Worthing & West Sussex - 1947 

(Capt.) R. French (99, 99)
J. Holdsworth (98, 95)
H. Matheson (96, 96)
T. Payne (97, 97)
G. Ramsey (97, 95)
G. Smith (94, 98)
N. Smith (98, 98)
T. Wells (96, 99)
J. Whittle (97, 98)
P. Terry (98, 97)
L. Vines (95, 98)
K. Tulloch (98, 98)

So while Peter Pearce (Sarisbury) and Dave Cotton (Havant) managed to achieve possibles, unfortunately P&D wasn't able to make up the difference that Worthing & West Sussex made in the first round.

The 2015 Woolgar Cup
Portsmouth & District vs Southampton & District

This is another competition that runs every year between the Portsmouth and Southampton teams.  This year it was very kindly hosted at Havant.  Again, it is teams of 12 (10 to count) with each person shooting two cards.  Here's how it went:

Portsmouth & District - 1917

A. Nevatte (95, 97)
I. Cooper (95, 98)
A. Perry (93, 93)
G. Scruton (97, 96)
D. Cleave (97, 95)
C. Richards (95, 98)
D. Shepperd (94, 94)
T. Read (94, 95)
D. Beere-Waldram (95, 98)
K. Hardyman (96, 97)
(Capt.) M. Nevatte (94, 96)
C. Coles (95, 94)
Southampton & District - 1947

M. Girling (98, 100)
J. Barber (96, 95)
D. Lumsden (95, 96)
A. Whittall (100, 98)
G. Barber (95, 97)
(Capt.) J. Exall (98, 97)
P. Wooldridge (97, 94)
T. Gleed (97, 100)
M. Holdway (97, 95)
M. Frost (96, 94)
P. Pearce (98, 98)
M. Guille (98, 99)

Well done to Southampton's shooters for some very impressive scores.  Portsmouth shooters will definitely have to pull their socks up for next year!

One other important piece of news that was announced was that our own Marian Nevatte would be stepping down as captain of the Portsmouth & District team.  Having taken on new responsibilities in the wake of Mary Maiden's passing, Marian has decided to hand over this particular role to someone else (who will be confirmed at the next P&D AGM).  All shooters gave a great round of applause in thanks for Marian's 8 years of work as the captain of the association team.

Many thanks, Marian!


Tuesday 7 April 2015

NSRA/RWS National Postal Competition Results

Winter is the season for most indoor postal competitions and now that we are well and truly into spring, the results are coming thick and fast.

Portsmouth City, as always, entered a team into the NRSA/RWS National Short Range League.  This team of five was made up of Ian Cooper, Marian Nevatte, Adam Nevatte, Sarah Hart and Phil Upchurch.  Our team, in Division 13 (of 23) shot well but ultimately came up short and had to settle for second place (a theme of this season for us it appears), losing to Pinewood Rifle Club in Berkshire.

Well done to our team who managed to place above Sunderland B, British Airways, Cumberland News and Colchester C.  Hopefully we'll achieve those few extra points to win next year!

Friday 3 April 2015

When Target Shooting Goes Wrong

Here's a little light-hearted video about when target shooting doesn't go quite as smoothly as we'd like it to.  Have any of these ever happened to you on the firing point?


Thursday 2 April 2015

Chichester Tile Shoot (Woolgar Challenge Shield)

While most of the time, our club focuses on target shooting using NSRA cards, every now and then we do something a little different...


Last Thursday a number of PCRC shooters participated in a fun evening of tile shooting, very kindly hosted by Chichester Rifle Club.  This was a considerably different form of prone shooting where the aim of the game (pardon the pun) is to destroy your tiles before your opponent destroys theirs.  It's a knock out competition where you need to line up on targets somewhat different to what you might be used to.


The difference in how you shoot these targets is also markedly different!


It was a long evening of shooting that started at 7pm and didn't finish until 10:30pm.  This was due to the four different competitions:

Bolt-Action Individual
All Comers Individual
Pairs
Quartets

There was a separate competition at the beginning of the night for those shooters with bolt-action rifles as it's recognised that these types of rifles have a more complex (and thus slower) unloading/reloading action to the BSA Martinis.

Bolt Action

Martini Action

All 8 of our shooters had a fun time competing in as many competitions as they could enter.


As is so often the case in such competitions, many shooters got knocked out in the first or second rounds, but Gordon Scruton managed get a medal by reaching the semi-final of the All Comers Individual.

Similarly, our pairs worked well together but Jonathan Rowe and Gordon Scruton were just shy of reaching medal positions.




In the Quartets, we had the unlucky situation of the first round being the A Team (Ian Cooper, Marian Nevatte, Gordon Scruton & Jonny Rowe) shooting against the B Team (Mike McCormick, George Barr, Steph Furness-Barr & Dave Reeves).  The A Team went through (sorry B Team) but failed to progress any further.



Congratulations to all the winners, commiserations to all the losers and a big thank you to Chichester, West Meon, Fareham and HMS Excellent for putting together teams to make the night as fun and competitive as it was.

Same time next year!  And next time we'll practise beforehand!