Glasgow League - Seconds out .. Round Four

Round four of the Glasgow indoor league was back to where we kicked off three short months ago - Eastwood High School, Newton Mearns. The 9am Sunday start would have the competitors out their bed early and archers can be a kranky lot. And thats when they aren't tired, hungover, feeling their advancing years or in a couple of cases, all three but for once everyone was on their best behaviour.

East Kilbride were hosting this round and the hall was set up with the minimum of fuss and confusion .. except for the usual mayhem over the target list. You'd think a number and a letter for your shootie position would be easy to remember but archers make it look SO difficult. Your Team GA representatives for this event was Oksana, John, Geo, Euan, Catherine and Chris with Dunky having called off due to not feeling well. GA had brought some support as pictured to the right and the EK fox was significantly outnumbered.

Today we were blessed with an actual qualified Judge at the event. The other Ross brother, Cameron, was taking part so there would be actual informed and measured application of the Rules of Shooting rather than the usual "just make it up, they'll never know". Sighters kicked off at 10am and two ends later ... it was on!

Some risk was taken with the target allocation of Chris and Geo assigned to the same target but with Chris shooting 5A and Geo 5D, they didn't have time to get bickering as they shot in different details .. well, except once. Chris took a less than complimentary pic of Geo and while mocking him .. forgot he needed to be on the line shooting. He raced to the line, threw his arrows down range rapidly and had one of his best ends of the day with two 10's. Guess he needs to shoot flustered more often.

All too soon .. or after an eternity .. depending if you were shooting well or not, the comp was over and the scorers retired to work out where they had messed up their scoring. Remember last time, when Glasgow snatched silver from the trembling hands of East Kilbride? Well, this time it was Glasgow who had their victory dance spoiled by the harsh reality of numbers. Due to confusion between an European "1" and a UK "7"*, Glasgow got credited with 60 points they defo deserved but technically hadn't actually shot. When the error was corrected, it was Strathclyde who got the gold and Glasgow the silver. There were challenges offered for "one arrow shootoffs" for the gold and there was the assertion that Strathclyde would have to pry the gold medal from the "cold dead hand" of one GA archer. Eventually, after some passionate banter, the exchange of medals was made .. apart from one strathclyder who preferred the silver as he wanted to make up a set of gold, silver and bronze. Archers be strange!

Two more competitions remain til the end of the League's season. Its been pretty frisky so far but coming into the home straight, Glasgow and Strathclyde are all tied up. Which team has the guts, skillset, determination or the most nefarious plan to win remains to be seen. Everything is up for grabs so don't discount emergency professional coaching, late night/early morning practice sessions, raw eggs or even kidnapping in the race to the finish line.
There's a lot at stake! Because "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing"**

As usual the current league standing and stats can be found on the Glasgow League website and finally, many thanks to EK for hosting this round of the competition.

Next Event will be at the Time Capsule, Coatbridge on February 22th, High Noon!

 *          *          *

* Isn't this why we had Brexit? To stop innocent archers being tortured like this!
** Attributed to UCLA Bruins college American football coach Henry Russell "Red" Sanders.
ps: plush mascots are a thing in archery.