Getting your Competition on

One of the great features of archery is competition and competitions. This can be against yourself (personal bests), mano a mano (head to heads) or shooting a round at a formal shoot and being ranking in your category (gender, bow type, age group) against your peers. While competitions are always more formal (and stressful) shootie than we normally see on a club night, they don't always need to be the extremely structured shoots you see in the World Cup or the Olympics. They can be a relaxed experience and fun to dip your toe into .. even if you aren't a dribbly competitive type like Oksana. However, if you have never done an archery competition before, they are in the region of "here be dragons" and can be a bit intimidating with all the unknowns. Let’s pull back the curtain and have a look at an entry level competition you might want to try ..

If you are trying your hand at the Head-to-Head challenge running in the club right now, that's a competition. It has structure, it has a set of requirements, and it has a competitive element, a result and prizes .. just bragging rights and a step up the ladder but a prize never the less. All very informal and relaxed but its still competition. But how about more formal events? Timed ends, alternating on the line, actual judges and there being something on the line like a medal? With this in mind, The Glasgow League has been created. Intended to be an entry level into competitions, this is a new monthly competition amongst the clubs in and around Glasgow*. It’s been set up to mirror the very successful Ayrshire league that GA competed in last year (and ran away with a medal). The League is based on a team format where any number of archers from a club enter (assuming there is space on the line available). At the competition, a Portsmouth round is shot - 60 arrows shot in 3 arrow ends at 20 yards on a 60cm face. The scores from the top four archers from each team are added together and compared with the other clubs scores. Highest combined total wins (sweet, sweet) gold, second silver and third bronze. All very easy and ideal for a first foray into competition. But what does a shoot actually entail. Lets take an overview of a competition with some flavour added from Sundays Glasgow League shoot.

Team GA, led by Oksana, attended the inaugural Glasgow League shoot (20/10/24) with five club members - Duncan, John, Geo, Euan and Catherine. The hosts were East Kilbride and the round was shot in the morning at EK's indoor venue - Eastwood high school in Newton Mearns. The team arrived early and were all set up for 9am - you don't want to be late and get stressed having to get set up in a hurry. The £7 entrance fee per archer was paid and the pre shoot ritual of finding the target list (what target you are shooting on) was achieved with the usual level of confusion. Each archer gets assigned a number and a letter. The number is your target, the letter is when and where you shoot on that target. (for example, Geo was 5C). After assembly, which is where you get welcomed to the shoot, the archers were given a couple of minutes to sort themselves out and then sighters are started. Here you get to meet your target partners (Geo's were Sam and Calum). Introduce yourself as these will be your bestest buds for the next couple of hours. Two of you will be pulling arrows and at least one will be scoring. Sighters for a Portsmouth (aka a Porty) are 2 ends of 3 arrows where you are shaking down your kit and yourself. You should already know what your sight mark is. Its then announced that the competition is starting, pulses spike to levels that paramedics would get concerned about and away we go. The following brief description of what happens at a shoot is fairly generic but you'd recognize these elements at any comp.

Normally you would have 2 minutes to shoot your three arrows but the Glasgow League is quite laid back so time pressure wasn't a worry. This was just as well given John got stuck on the clicker at one point resulting in some light mocking from the tourney organiser and a lot friskier mocking from his teammates. After each end, the order of archers changes. A and B archers (the letter you were assigned earlier) shoot odd numbered ends first. C and D archers shoot first even numbered ends. This can lead to distracted archers gossiping when they should be up on the line so its important to stay focused. Some competitions have a board set up to let you know which detail is up first that end. As to which side of the boss you stand, you don't get to choose. A and C are on the left of the boss. B and D on the right. You should also be aware of where you are standing (use the floor batons) as there is limited space on a competition line and taking space belonging to other archers will get you reported to the judges. Scoring your arrows is done in a quite formalised way. When its your turn, point at your arrows (no touching) highest to lowest calling out the score you wish to claim. Always claim the highest you believe the score to be. If there is any doubt a judge will be called to adjudicate. Their word is final. And so, the competition continues till the half way point when (normally) a comfort break is called and everyone who has been hitting the isotonic sports drinks rush to the toilet. The second half is a continuation of the first but take care that first end back. Points can be dropped if your head isn't quite back in the game yet.

When shooting is concluded, etiquette dictates you thank the archers you shot with even though they may have whupped yo ass. Specific thanks should be given to the poor sod scoring who now has a fraught 15 mins of arithmetic ahead of him. He/she will retire to a quiet corner where they will prove conclusively that archers are completely innumerate when faced with a score sheet. Check their arithmetic for your score before you sign that scoresheet! Once signed it goes in the books. No backsies. The other archers on the target usually help with breaking the range down and putting the bosses away before packing up their kit and clustering in small groups to bitch. Excuses about why they didn't bring their A game. How they stone cold got cheated out of dozens of line cutters cause the judge was blind. How they were shooting so much better just yesterday. All can be heard with relentless monotony. Its a very common post shoot tradition! ;o)

Eyes on the prize

Once all the dodgy addition is submitted and tallied .. the porky pie telling ends and its onto prize giving. Medals will be awarded in reverse order for each category of archer. The Glasgow League is a team competition so no individual medals, just the team medal. Only the top four in a team get a medal. So, while you are a team, you are also competing against the scruffy oiks wearing the same club shirt. Once the medals are distributed, that's the end of the competition. Nothing left to do but say your goodbyes, head home, slot your scores into your excel spreadsheet for later analysis and have a sob over what might have been. Alternatively, do the happy dance around the house wearing your medal.

We've kept the above to broad strokes to tell the tale of a competition roughly based on Sunday's shoot, missing out a lot of the details. But rest assured on Sunday there was gossip, discussing kit, the inevitable dodgy humour and strange occurrences. How strange? Like Geo was awarded an 18point scoring arrow at one point strange!

So .. Interested? .. The next Glasgow League shoot is being run by us. It will take place at the Time Capsule in Coatbridge on Sunday the 24th of November with assembly at 12noon (be there a minimum of 30mins beforehand to get your bow setup) with the shoot taking around 3 hours to complete. Competitions are incredibly important social occasions for mixing with archers from other clubs. Its something we hope you will try at least once and this is an ideal starting point. For more information ... See John if you are possibly feeling an urge to try your hand or check out the current state of play on The Glasgow League website (mucho stats coming!). You never know, you may like it so much, you become the next dribbly competitive type for the club.

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* There's us, East Kilbride, Linwood, Strathclyde Uni, Orion's and Monklands shooting in the League at present.
Map Image by M. H. from Pixabay
Glasgow League Website