The 2016 Summer Report, pt 3: Indoor Shooting Postal Leagues

Hampshire Indoor Summer Postal League

Last year, Portsmouth City’s A Team was very pleased to win Division 1 of the summer postal league. We would have been similarly pleased to defend our title this summer but had to settle for 3rd place this year – well done to Windsor Rifle Club and Fareham Rifle Club’s A teams for coming 1st and 2nd respectively. The upside of this competition was that we still beat Sarisbury (which doesn’t happen very often)!

Unfortunately, the summer postal leagues are never as well subscribed as the winter leagues, leaving fewer divisions and therefore meaning that teams of a wide range of ability are forced to compete against each other. This was the case for Portsmouth City’s B team - M. McCormick, D. Reeves, T. Rowe and D. Herron (with T. Sommerville very kindly subbing in for one round) - but these shooters should hold their heads up high that they competed, got all their cards shot, and all improved their shooting as is reflected by their improved averages of the second half of the season, compared with the first.

In the individual postal competition, G. Scruton won Div 2.

Dave Reeves was also very pleased to win a Moore Memorial Trophy for his performance in Class D!

Portsmouth & District Indoor Summer Postal League

The individual postal summer league finished only a few weeks ago with some of our shooters achieving very respectable places:

Ian Cooper (Runner Up, Div 1)

Jonathan Rowe (Runner Up, Div 3)

Tamsin Rowe (Runner Up, Div 9)

David Owen (3rd place, Div 10)

Eastern Region Summer League

A number of Portsmouth City shooters managed to achieve respectable scores despite not necessarily achieving a particularly high place in the division.  One notable exception to this was Tom Sommerville and Matt Simmons, who came 1st and 3rd respectively in Division 12.

Newmarket & District Short Range Open Postal

The Newmarket shoot is a short 4-card competition that happens between February and May (yes,  a little bit before summer technically, sorry) and this year Portsmouth City had 11 people competing.  The club was very proud to have a number of their shooters placed in this competition.  Gordon Scruton won the B Class and there was success further down the classifications as well.

Tom Sommerville & Tamsin Rowe both newcomers to the sport and with less than a year of experience under their belts, showed that there is certainly some raw talent that the Portsmouth City team will be looking to develop and capitalise on over the next few years.  Tamsin won the E Class with a very respectable score of 369 (out of 400), beating Tom, who came runner up, by only one point!

Tom Sommerville & Tamsin Rowe (or Mr Somerville and Tasmin as their certificates would have you believe!)

Tamsin also came Runner Up in the C/D/E class ladies' competition, meanwhile Gordon and Jonny came Runners Up in the A/B pairs competition.

One last thing that happened over the summer was a personal achievement and one that a shooter never really forgets - Lauren Haskett, now using a new jacket equal to her abilities, got her first ton!  Well done, Lauren, may it be the first of many.

The 2016 Summer Report, pt 1: The ELEY Final

It will not have escaped the notice of some of you that it has been some time since I’ve contributed to this blog – many apologies. Here’s a summary of how the club and its shooters have been doing over the summer:

Portsmouth City was proud to send 5 shooters to the NSRA/ELEY final this year. This was an excellent number to get to the 50m outdoor final from a total of 12 shooters who took part in the competition. For J. Rowe and M. McCormick, this competition was about besting their scores and standing compared to last year, while at the same time being in higher, more competitive divisions. While for the ladies, this was L. Haskett and T. Rowe’s first time shooting in these finals and thus their first experience of the infamous wind on the Century Range.

Here’s how everybody did:

G. Scruton (191, 188 – 379), Class A: 20th place

J. Rowe (192, 186 – 378), Class C: 4th place (achieved 4th place in Class E last year: 185, 192 - 377)

L. Haskett (189, 185 – 374), Class E: 2nd place

M. McCormick (177, 179 – 356), Class E: 7th place (achieved 9th place in Class F last year: 170, 182 - 353)

T. Rowe (179, 177 – 356), Class F: 9th place

So overall it was a great Sunday afternoon of shooting for Portsmouth City.  The next post will stay outdoors and review some of the other 50m and 100yd matches that City shooters have taken part in over the summer.

Five Portsmouth City Shooters Get to the NSRA/ELEY Final!

So after two rounds of four cards each, we now know which of our shooters have now earned a place at the ELEY final at Bisley this year:

A Class: Gordon Scruton (1st Round: 393; 2nd Round: 396)

C Class: Jonathan Rowe (1st Round: 384; 2nd Round: 387)

E Class: Lauren Haskett (1st Round: 371; 2nd Round: 383)

E Class: Mike McCormick (1st Round: 379; 2nd Round: 378)

F Class: Tamsin Rowe (1st Round: 364; 2nd Round: 367)

So, congratulations to Jonny and Mike for repeating their achievement of last year and getting to the final once again.  The match will be 50m outdoors at Bisley on August 14th.

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