Hampshire Postal Results are in!

Over the winter months, the rifle teams of Hampshire shoot against each other in postal matches.  Here's how it breaks down:

10 divisions

8 teams per division

5 shooters per team

14 rounds to shoot

Portsmouth City entered 3 teams this season (our shooters are eager for the competition!) and I'm delighted to say that of the 210 cards shot, there were no NCRs (meaning No Card Returned; meaning unshot cards).

On our A Team was Ian Cooper, Sarah Hart, Adam Nevatte, Marian Nevatte and Gordon Scruton.  This team acquitted itself well in Division 2 and achieved 2nd place (losing first place to Shanklin), winning 9 rounds, drawing 1, and losing 4.

Our B Team (Lauren Haskett, Phil Upchurch, Steph Furness-Barr, Jonathan Rowe and David Owen) managed to pull themselves out of a mid-season slump and similarly achieve second place in Division 7 (Guernsey taking first place).  They also won 9 rounds and lost 5.

The shooters on our C Team (Lou Stafford, Mike McCormick, Adi Fallows, Dave Reeves and Mike Hellyer) have taken advantage of the experience in Division 10 to really hone their competition skills and while they only achieved 5th place, having won 8 and lost 6, we've seen the quality of their shooting improve in leaps and bounds and look forward to even better shooting from them in the coming seasons.  Well done to our sister club, Portsmouth Railway Rifle Club, for their C Team winning this division with 14 wins and no losses!

Portsmouth City A - 2nd Place (Division 2)

Portsmouth City B - 2nd Place (Division 7)

Portsmouth City C - 5th Place (Division 10)

Competition within the club was fierce for the best average within the teams.  In the A team there was a tie this year between Sarah Hart and Gordon Scruton (both achieving a final average of 97.79).  Phil Upchurch achieved the best B Team average with 93.93, and Lou Stafford led the C Team with an average of 91.57.

We've thoroughly enjoyed this season of shooting and have seen a fantastic surge in achievement and energy amongst the teams.  We look forward to building on this in the 2015 summer leagues and, come next year's winter leagues, we hope that many of our newer shooters will be able to make up additional teams that will increase Portsmouth City's contribution to the regional competitions.

Jonny Rowe is Fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Research

One of our shooters has gone and shaved all his hair off for Macmillan Cancer Support - look!

To read more about Jonny's connection with Macmillan and to donate, follow this link.

Jonny well done, a very brave thing to do - probably best to wear a hat on the firing point now. :-)

Civil Service Competition Results (Winter 2014/15)

Previously, I mentioned that we had finished the winter postal league cards for the Civil Service Sports Council's Target Shooting Association, and that congratulations were due to Marian Nevatte who got the best individual average over the season (97.9).

Well we've now got the results in from the scores and I'm very pleased to say that our team (Ian Cooper, Adam Nevatte, Marian Nevatte, Gordon Scruton) won their division; and that Jonathan Rowe won his division shooting individually.

We'll be putting in a large number of members new to shooting into the Civil Service postal competitions this summer as it will be a great opportunity to increase their competition experience and, hopefully, we'll have some similarly good news come the autumn!

Portsmouth City Rifle Club finish the season on a high!

Tuesday night was our last match of the Portsmouth & District shoulder-to-shoulder season, against West Meon.  We've had a great season and, as a team, we should be (and are) very proud of our stats.  Thankfully, last night ended with another win.

Here were the scores:

West Meon - 478 M. Atkins (92) G. Stone (94) J. Dalton (95) A. Smith (94) P. Hannington (96) D. Corbett (98) R. Amor (92) G. Dixon (95)

Portsmouth City - 485 I. Cooper (99) M. Nevatte (95) A. Nevatte (97) P. Upchurch (92) G. Scruton (95) J. Rowe (96) S. Hart (98) D. Reeves (84)

So our final stats are as follows:

16 matches (12 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses)
Total League Points: 26

Scoring Team Average (top 5 shooters of each match): 485.7

Top Shoulder-to-Shoulder Average: 97.7 (Adam Nevatte)

The competition for the best individual average was very close this year with 4 shooters all being within a few scoring points of each other:

1st: Adam Nevatte (97.73)

2nd: Ian Cooper (97.63)

3rd: Sarah Hart (97.19)

4th: Gordon Scruton (97.13)

Special thanks go to Marian Nevatte for being such a patient captain of the team, and to the following shooters for attendance and participation at all 16 matches:

Ian Cooper

Sarah Hart

Marian Nevatte

Jonathan Rowe

We wait to see where the team will come in the overall standings, but regardless of that, we look forward to an equally enjoyable and rewarding summer season of shooting.

Portsmouth City vs Havant

Tonight was the penultimate shoulder-to-shoulder match for Portsmouth City and our last home match of the 2014/15 season.  As mentioned in previous match reports, PCRC has managed a good number of wins this season and this places us in contention for the Portsmouth & District championship this year.  It has been 10 years since we last won so we are keen to have our name on the trophy once more.

Tonight's match was going to be a challenge as we faced Havant, who had beaten us earlier in the season.  Would it be the same story again this evening?

Portsmouth City - 485 D. Reeves (85) A. Nevatte (94) M. Nevatte (92) I. Cooper (99) S. Hart (99) P. Upchurch (93) G. Scruton (97) J. Rowe (96)

Havant - 482 T. Brown (95) D. Cotton (97) L. Hanna (96) A. Perry (96) J. Alexander (93) M. Reynolds (98)

To be completely honest, there was 'below par' shooting from both teams but thanks to a couple of solid performances from Ian Cooper and Sarah Hart, PCRC managed to add another two championship points to our league score!

Our final match is this coming Tuesday (please remember that the range will not be open Tuesday 3rd March); an away match against West Meon.  Our last match against them was a draw but we're hoping to push our winning streak one further, all the way to the end of the season!

We've finished our Civil Service cards... but who got the best average?

Portsmouth City tends to shoot quite a few competitions with the Civil Service Sports Council's Target Shooting Association.  Last week we finished our 2014/15 winter postal cards.  We had a team of four, plus four other shooters taking part in individual competitions.  We will find out in the following weeks how the team and individuals have done in their respective divisions.

However, there is always healthy competition within the club to get the best average in these competitions.  This season, it was very close at the top:

1st: Marian Nevatte (97.9)

2nd: Adam Nevatte (97.4)

3rd: Gordon Scruton (97.3)

So very well done to our club captain, Marian, for dominating this particular competition and fingers crossed that the high quality of shooting overall will allow the team to win their division and be promoted.

PCRC stays in contention of the championship with another win

As of our match against Fareham B, Portsmouth City is now in joint first position in the Portsmouth & District shoulder-to-shoulder league.  However, if the championship were to be decided based on that, we'd come second based on aggregate score.  Thankfully, there are more matches to be considered.

Since that match we managed to chalk up another 3 wins and I'm happy to say that, despite some ropey shooting from some of the team, tonight we managed to make that 4 wins.

It was a home match this Thursday against Chichester.  Once again, PCRC fielded a full team of 8 and we're very proud to say that we've managed to have full teams at every match this season with one exception - our earlier away match at Chichester.  However, while that previous match saw a respectably high score of 489, tonight Portsmouth didn't quite manage to put its best foot forward.

Here were the scores:

Portsmouth City - 484 D. Reeves (86) A. Nevatte (99) M. Nevatte (93) P. Upchurch (93) J. Rowe (94) I. Cooper (98) S. Hart (100) G. Scruton (93)

Chichester - 479 D. Bishop (96) N. Hayward (94) R. Ellams (96) W. Williamson (93) N. Logan (97) S. Jenkins (96) J. Peart (92) C. Wade (90)

So special congratulations go to Sarah Hart for getting a possible.  Some others on the team need to pull their finger out (including yours truly) to keep the aggregate score competitive.  We will also need to pull things together to challenge Havant next week.

New PB for our secretary!

A couple of nights ago, our secretary Adam, posted a little message on Facebook.

While this in itself is a very good set of scores, Adam's not actually blowing his own trumpet enough here as this was the first time he'd managed to shoot more than a single possible (meaning 'best possible score'; meaning 100 out of 100) on the same day.

So not only did he manage to get an evening average of 99, but he also sailed past his goal of getting 2 tonnes in one evening and went straight on to get 3!

Well done, Adam!  Dave would be proud!

ELEY's Sports Shooting Psychology pages

If you haven't already had a look, you might want to take a look at some of these brief articles, written by world-class competition rifle shooters, for ELEY.

Concentration, Confidence and Control.

Portsmouth City victorious again!

Tonight saw a relatively local away match for the Portsmouth City team as we faced our Pompey cousins, Portsmouth Railway Rifle Club.  A fun evening was had by all but this didn't necessarily translate to the best scores for either team.  Nonetheless, PCRC managed to come away with another victory.

This was, in fact, a distinctive victory as the the team now has 18 points in the top division of the Portsmouth & District league, which is 2 points better than PCRC has achieved in the last two seasons (2012-13, 2013-14). 

Here were the scores:

Portsmouth Railway - 473 J. Ring (98) J. Stockham (94) C. Coles (97) N. Perman (91) K. Hardyman (92) N. Toms (92) D. Bednall (85)

Portsmouth City - 484 S. Hart (97) L. Haskett (88) I. Cooper (96) M. Nevatte (97) A. Nevatte (97) G. Scruton (97) P. Upchurch (93) J. Rowe (94) Reserve D. Reeves (83)

We now have a couple of home matches to look forward to in the coming weeks, at Chichester and Havant, before we finish the 2014/15 season on March 3rd shooting away at West Meon.