Today I had the privilege of standing in for Martin Ross as county captain as the NCAS junior team took part in the EMAS inter counties tournament for the Sydney Bond Trophy (Recurve) & Bingham Ceramics trophy (Compound).
After a wild day of weather on Saturday I was relieved to wake up to a calm breeze and the early signs of a sunny Sunday. At least I could be sure I wasn’t going to loose any of my junior team to Wizard of Oz style winds which had been my concern on Saturday!!
As we arrived the sun disappeared and as assembly started we saw the beginnings of some heavy rain!!
The juniors stayed in good spirits and got on with it and were rewarded with the return of the sunshine with scattered showers. The rain was bearable it was the mud that was the bigger issue!!
Throughout the day our recurve team maintained a steady 3rd position whilst the compounds shot well but were in last place.
As always the spirit of the Northampton team shone through and I am proud to have been their captain today. No complaining and lots of supporting each other, as teams should do.
Final results for the teams were…
Recurve Team:
Nottinghamshire 5312
Derbyshire 5183
Northamptonshire 5114
Leicestershire & Rutland 4920
Lincolnshire 3393
Compound Team:
Leicestershire & Rutland 2332
Derbyshire 2280
Northamptonshire 2146
Of our team of 10 juniors they have been able to claim:
3 x Rose awards
1 x 6 gold end award
And 6 archers achieved a personal best.
Thank you to the adults who drove the juniors for the event and to my coaches who were put to work during the day.
I think it is fair to say that we have a team of wet, tired and muddy juniors headed home having had an excellent day of archery.
Thank you all for making it easy to look after you all.
Helen Sharpe.
