We need to talk about … the Glasgow League

Hope I’ve given it long enough to talk about this now, but for anyone still traumatised by the outcome of this year’s Glasgow League, look away now …

GA takes part in the Glasgow League – an indoor season team competition involving 7 clubs from in and around Glasgow, shooting a Portsmouth round (60 arrows, a 60cm face, 20 yards) once a month over 6 months (that's a lot of 6 and multiples thereof). Each club fields a team, the size of which can vary depending on spaces available, but it’s your team’s top 4 scores on the day that matter. You might recall that we were doing rather well in it this year, lots of energy …. but then it went silent. (Not a good sign! Editor) So, what happened? Well, we didn’t lose and in fact you might say we won, in a sense. Confused? Let’s start at the beginning of the 2025/26 season.

MUST .. SHOOT .. BETTER

Stage 1 – Hosted by East Kilbride, Eastwood High School, 5 October 2025. We fielded a team of 11! Given that only 37 archers shot in total, we were very well represented. Initially it looked like we’d come second, ie silver medals, to Strathclyde Uni (the 2024/25 overall winners), with Monklands third. A reasonable start to our campaign but afterwards there was a recount and it turned out we’d come third! One of Monklands’ archers hadn’t been included which meant they’d in fact tied on points with Strathclyde but as they scored less golds, came second. There was some disgruntled swapping of silver for bronze medals and muttering about the benefits of Excel spreadsheets vs a good old pen and paper. ... 5-3 to Strathclyde

Stage 2 – Hosted by Monklands, The Time Capsule, 1 November 2025. A mere 6 of us this time. Despite our depleted numbers we still achieved second, and this time not to have it snatched away from us at a recount (we’d have been marching on The Time Capsule if it had been). Strathclyde first again though, so building a lead, and we needed to up our game. Monklands came in third. ... 10-7 to Strathclyde

Stage 3 – Hosted by Linwood, On-X, 13 December 2025. 13? Unlucky for some. We were back up to a team of 8, and this was even with the University of West of Scotland team making a first appearance. A 6-week break since the last round, so how would that affect the result? We came first! Strathclyde were second, with East Kilbride third this time. We had halved the gap (had to remind John to reign in his delight, as he was giving Kelsey from Strathclyde a lift home too). ... 14-12 to Strathclyde

Stage 4 – Hosted by GA, The Time Capsule, 17 January 2026. As we were hosting, field captains for the day were our very own John and George (a bit like Gilbert and George, but not regularly found at a Turkish Restaurant on the Kingsland Road … sorry my past life creeping in there). Annoyingly they called it down the line without any favouritism. Would the festive break affect our upturn in form? Again we fielded a team of 8, and maybe there’s something to be said for consistency in archery because it yielded the same result – gold! Strathclyde again second and East Kilbride third. In terms of the overall table that put us only one point behind Strathclyde, with momentum going our way … 18-17 to Strathclyde

sixteen 25/26 medals on the hoof

Stage 5 – Hosted by Strathclyde, The Time Capsule, 21 February 2026. Again, we fielded a team of 8. The result was a longtime coming, with near fevered speculation developing, much read into the hosts’ expressions, as well as muttering about possibly favouring a luddite tendency when it came to calculations … our speculations proved well founded. Not only did we win, but it was Monklands second, with Strathclyde relegated to third. Three in a row!

Stepping back from the celebrations for a second, we had taken the overall League lead with only one stage to go, but that lead was a single solitary point. It was going to come down to the wire .. again! Just as it did in 2025! ... 22-21 to Glasgow

GA archers giving their all

Stage 6 – Hosted by Monklands, The Time Capsule, 21 March 2026. The final. All we needed to do was finish ahead of Strathclyde to win the League. Even if they beat us by one place, surely we’d still win on total points scored? We turned out en masse – a team of 9 rather than the 8 of the last 3 stages. Strathclyde only had 4! Shooting on the same boss as one of the Strathclyde team, I knew it wasn’t going right for him, and while our two teams were rivals, I took no pleasure from it. I was scorer and checked and double checked our boss’s scores, they were signed off and handed in for inputting on to the laptop … the stage’s result was declared: Strathclyde won with GA second! That put us level on points overall. So the outcome was to be decided by adding up the scores achieved by both team’s top 4 archers in each stage and if that didn’t separate us then it would be decided based on which team had sported the best headwear (in which case we would no doubt win). GA total scores: 13117. Strathclyde: 13133. 16 points difference! We lost the League by a mere 16 points over 6 stages. The two teams had shot 2880 arrows between them to get those scores, and if two of those arrows had missed, or a few more had slipped into the red, or the blue … if we’d only scored an additional 0.011 an arrow!

So we won. Sort of. But Strathclyde took home the cup again. We’d run them about as close as you can, and if only the organisers had had to stick with the outcome originally declare for the first stage ….

Come September we’ll be doing it all again, although with potentially 8 rather than 7 clubs. Also, the original concept of the League was to encourage those who haven’t had much competition experience to have a go. In reality the league has developed into the archery equivalent of The Hunger Games but with more swearing and animosity! Hopefully that will be fixed next year with some additional incentives for barebow, traditional, juniors and novices. Watch this space.

To put a line under last year, many thanks to the GA archers who threw themselves 100% into the fray. However, next year we hope to see them at 101% - JUST WIN BABY!

Team GA for this year were: Euan Ogilvie (5 stages, 3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), Scott Jamieson (3 stages, 1 gold, 1 bronze), Finlay Grant (5 stages, 3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), John Strang (5 stages, 1 silver, 1 bronze), Jonah McArthur (5 stages, 1 gold, 1 silver), George Davidson (3 stages, 1 silver), Oksana Peterson (5 stages, 2 gold), Henri Krishna (6 stages, 1 silver), Duncan Malone (5 stages, 2 gold, 2 silver), Chris Blair (6 stages), Meredith Hill (1 stage), Chris Viney (1 stage)

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Last years finale article for the 24/25 season can be found here
Thank you to guest writer for this week Henri Krishna ... who knows what happened ".. because he was there!"*
* apologies to Max Boyce for pinching his catch phrase