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Mushroom Magic!
Sway bowmen's biggest tournament of the year is the Mushroom shoot. You would be forgiven for wondering why they would want to shoot mushrooms, they're pretty inoffensive right? Actually the shoot was given its name because the field where it was originally held was full of mushrooms and although the club now has a large, beautifully kept range (with its own conservation area but no mushrooms!), the name has stuck.
This year saw 57 archers from 10 clubs across the South compete for attractive new trophies with wooden mushrooms in their design. Visiting archers come back year on year, some from a distance (West Wight archers being our furthest visitors this year) and some from much closer. Helen Smith from Waterside archery club near Exbury said, 'We love this shoot, it's like a home from home. We come for the hugs!'
All archers shot 'Western' rounds which comprise 4 dozen arrows at the first distance and 4 dozen at a second (closer) one. Competition distance was 80/60 yards, with archers aged 50+, new archers and juniors shooting closer combinations.
Sway members took gold in:
Open recurve – Matt Cooper
Open longbow – Brian Vaughan
Women’s barebow – Teresa Shelley
Junior women’s recurve – Skye Ecclestone
Open 50+ recurve – Nick Phillips
Women’s 50+ longbow – Karen Freeman
Women’s 50+ barebow – Victoria Hopkins
And Silver in:
Open 50+ longbow – Mick Hayman
Women’s 50+ barebow Carole Rawlings
They also performed well in the team competitions, taking Gold (Matt Cooper, Nick Phillips, Alistair Reeves and Richard Seaby)and Bronze (Skye Ecclestone, Jonathan Gay, Colin Powell and Joe Powell) in the recurve cartegory and Gold in the Traditional team event (Victoria Hopkins and Carole Rawlings).
As Victoria Hopkins said, ‘There’s always a great atmosphere at this shoot. I love the enthusiasm of the competing archers.’
Keith Gunn, from Sway, chipped in, ‘and there was even an ice-cream van!’.
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On a bright Easter Monday, Sway Bowmen held their second Red King shoot.
43 archers from across the South attended to shoot a two-way Western. This meant they shot 4 dozen arrows at 60 yards, and a further 4 dozen at 50 yards. The ‘two-way’ part is unusual because archers shot 3 arrows from one end of the field and 3 back again.
This shoot is primarily for long bows with other bow types graciously allowed to join the fun. This year the event attracted 14 longbows and their medals were awarded according to British Longbow Society rules, that is: Gold to the archer with most hits (scoring arrows of any denomination), Silver to the best score and Bronze to the most golds (bulls-eyes). Archers of other bow types were awarded on score as usual.
Last year’s winner, Brendan Reese, acted as ‘Lord Patron’. In the past this was the equivalent of a sponsor, someone who supplied a number of archers to the local Lord and saw that there was fair play. Brendan took his role seriously, dressing as the Red King (William Rufus), which turned out to give an interesting photo opportunity when he won again and had to be awarded his trophy by the Tournament Officer, Jem Mason (on the right of the picture), also dressed as the Red King! Jem joked that he wasn’t going to challenge Brendan for the crown as ‘Brendan is a bigger than me’.
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Every year Sway Bowmen take a team to Waterside archery club to compete for the Sway Water trophy. More friendly rivalry than grudge match, it is nonetheless hotly contested and the team are always hungry for the win.
On a fine and still day confidence was high and a party atmosphere prevailed. We’d had a couple of setbacks in the run up – Oli Cornish was shooting with a hastily borrowed bow having had his own longbow break in practice just 2 days before; our tournaments officer (and usually the lynchpin of away events), Jem Mason, was unable to take part due to (not archery related) injury and some of our elite archers were away at other shoots. However, a team of 23 had remembered the clock change and appeared in various states of alertness to take part.
Each archer competes as an individual in their own discipline. They shoot a ‘Stafford’ round which consists of 6 dozen arrows shot at an 80cm target at 30 metres. The top 16 of the 23 archers present were then matched against the top 16 from Waterside to ascertain who has won the interclub trophy.
It was a good day for Sway! Our medals were as follows:
Women’s recurve - Gold -Jodie Green
Silver - Charlie Ecclestone
U14 Women’s recurve - Gold -Skye Ecclestone
50+ Women’s barebow -Gold -Victoria Hopkins
Silver - Theresa Shelley
Women’s 50+ longbow -Gold - Jo Long
Men’s 50+ compound - Gold - Keith Cheshire
Men’s 50+ barebow - Gold - Bob Hughes
Bronze - Phil Green
Men’s longbow - Silver - Oli Cornish
Men’s recurve - Silver - Matt Cooper
Men’s 50+ recurve - Bronze - Nick Phillips
As the medals were awarded we became more confident and so it was not entirely a surprise when it was announced that the coveted (brand new!) trophy was awarded to Sway. Oli said, ‘in the words of the current youth, we ‘slay’ at Sway!’ A great start to the shooting season.
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Archery is a year round sport. Some archers pile on layers of clothing until they can barely move and continue shooting throughout the winter months. However, for those who don’t like the cold or when, as this year, there are prolonged periods of rain, it is possible to shoot indoors. Your local club – Sway Bowmen – meet at Brockenhurst College across the winter, shooting a variety of rounds of 20 yards or 18 metres. At the end of the season nine of their members were brave enough to try their skills by competing in the Hampshire County Indoor archery Championships in Eastleigh.
Eastleigh is a very large competition and in a field of 166 archers from across the south it was hard to know who was a Hampshire archer and therefore competing for the coveted Hampshire Champion title. Matt Cooper said, ‘I kept looking on Ianseo (the website where scores are uploaded in real time) the whole day and just thought, ah, if I get silver or bronze I’ll take it gladly but, no! I got the gold!’ Matt is now the Hampshire Recurve archery champion!
Matt was joined in the honours by Skye Ecclestone who also achieved a gold medal. The remarkable thing is, that because of the way archery rules are structured Skye competed in the Under 14 women’s recurve competition despite being only 11 years old and despite only starting archery in 2024!