On 29th & 30th of June, a team of 12 men and 3 ladies, represented Essex and Suffolk at the inter counties team competition held at Lilleshall, Shropshire.
Weather was very warm and sunny on Saturday and cooler but breezy on Sunday.
Most of the team arrived on Friday to set up tents and have a practice in the evening.
Some of the team (Mark/Richard/Tony - Barebow, Bob - Longbow, Tony - Compound) had never shot in the team head to head format before, in this type of team event 3 archers must shoot 2 arrows each within a 2 minute timeframe.
Most of the teams managed to get some shooting practice in that evening, were happy with the shooting line up and had a chance to become familiar with the time pressures archers are under when shooting an arrow in 20 seconds!!
On Saturday, the teams started off with a WA70 /WA50 round, depending on bow style, each archer’s score is added to the other members of their team to give a total for the 3 team members. This combined score then determines your ranking position and who you will be facing in the, knock out, head to head round.
After the qualification round , Essex teams ranked as follows;
Ladies recurve 6th
Men’s recurve 9th
Men’s barebow 3rd
Men’s longbow 2nd
Men’s compound 3rd
A short break for lunch and team photos then onto the knockout stage...
Ladies recurve won their first match 6-2 against Dorset and then lost in the quarter finals against Worcester, in a very close match, only losing in a one arrow each shoot off ......... very exciting!!
Men’s recurve had a bye but then lost 6-0 to Berkshire.
Men’s barebow won their 1st match 6-2 against Buckinghamshire and lost to Durham & Northumberland 6-2 in the semi final . In the match for third place the team were 4-0 down before fighting back to force a shoot off, unfortunately missing out and ending their fight in fourth place. A fantastic achievement as Richard Burgess had only shot an outdoor round about 3 times in the last 2 years!!!!
Men’s longbow team made the semi final but lost 6-0 to Devon & Cornwall so were also forced to shoot for third position unfortunately losing out to a strong Kent team, 6-0, and also taking fourth position.
Men’s compound team made it through to the third position match with wins against Norfolk , Warwickshire and a defeat against Berkshire. In their final match they overcame Oxford to take third place.
I would like to congratulate Bob Attalia and James Howell , who both broke county records for longbow & compound respectively.
Ladies 
The Compounds 
Keeping Cool
So onto Sunday a WA1440 . Just 3 scores for the round added together to give total for team with the final position of the team to determine points.
Results were as follows;
Ladies recurve 7th
Men’s recurve 16th
Men’s barebow 3rd
Men’s longbow 4th
Men’s compound 3rd
After the scores from the 3 disciplines were added up, the Essex & Suffolk Team ended up as follows.
Ladies recurve overall - 7th
Men’s recurve overall - 10th
Men’s barebow - 3rd and Bronze medal
Men’s longbow - 4th
Men’s compound - 3rd and Bronze medal
Full results can be found on ianseo:
Day 1 - https://www.ianseo.net/Details.php?toId=5762
Day 2 - https://www.ianseo.net/Details.php?toId=5763
Well done to all the Essex Archers who participated in this event. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with the Team while handing out the sugar boosters !!!!
Tony King
Assistant Team Manager
