Historic Day for Nottinghamshire Shooters

The final round of Intercounties shoots was wound up at Nottingham & District Gun Club; the Intercounties ABT was the discipline on the menu and the little matter of finalising the destination of the Directors Trophy was another item on the agenda.

The Directors Trophy was dreamt up 3 years ago by the then East Midlands Director Colin Butler, and it was designed to reward the most successful county over the 6 Intercounties shoots.

In its inaugural year the scores of the top seniors were included, but thanks to a suggestion by the former Notts Chairman Paul Brown, the scoring format was revamped to try and encourage counties to field more juniors, ladies and veterans. We were very pleased with this tweak to the system, but no matter what Team Suffolk always came up with the goods and had held the trophy for its history of 3 years. It was long believed, tongue in cheek I may add, that Suffolk thought we were changing the rules to give other counties a hand at tackling the Suffolk firepower, but of course that was not the case, and I have to say you have to salute Team Suffolk for their wonderful achievement, for every point they earnt was on the road, never once shooting at one of their county grounds.

There were a few close calls in that period, Northamptonshire won the first three events 2 years ago and were swiftly labelled the “Dream Team” by the media, ok then….just me, but they fell away when the trap disciplines were up for grabs. Last year Team Norfolk were wrongly declared winners for a few hours at least, subsequent checks and double checks revealed that Suffolk had won by a single clay, not over one shoot but the whole of the Intercounties series. Think about that for a moment, 6 Intercounties shoots, and as many as 20 people in each county team, each shoot consisted of 100 targets per shooter and Suffolk won by a solitary clay, that is by a rough calculation, about 9,000 to 12,000 clays…..and just one made the difference.

This year it appears that Nottinghamshire decided to give it their best shot and try and wrestle free the vice like grip Suffolk had on the trophy. The key to winning is make sure you enter a team in every event, it’s not necessarily winning an event here and there but consistent points scoring that is the key.

The Skeet kicked things off and Northants took an early lead, the all Round saw a victory for Suffolk and in the Sporting Bedfordshire were the victors. At the halfway mark Cambs were leading the table on 17 points with two third place finishes and a runners up berth, Northants, Notts and Suffolk in joint second on 14 points. In the DTL Notts won and forced a three-way tie at the top with Suffolk and Cambs all on 21 points. Leicestershire winning the FITASC stirred things up a bit, but a second place finish by Suffolk gave them a narrow lead going into the final Intercounties shoot.  

So it was all nicely set up….sadly the weather never really played the game as the threat of a storm, the voracity of which has not been seen since 1987 was beginning to brew.

Team Notts took to the layouts all with a pep talk from Julia still freshly in their minds, a freshening breeze already playing with the targets.

Notts juniors were to be unopposed, but they were to play a vital part and credit must go to them for staying focussed despite knowing they had won the junior glassware. In the final reckoning of the Directors trophy both Curtis Woolley and Conor Bean’s scores were used to give Notts a Directors Trophy final score, Conor also securing the Junior High Gun Trophy with a magnificent score of 90, Freddy Brown 69 completed the winning line up.

Notts Vets had a comfortable victory over five teams the closest of which was Lincs ten points behind, Ken Rimington was the man with a Vets high score of 85 but more importantly valuable DT points were earned for the cause, Ash Parfrement 78 and Mick Feather 72 completed the winning line up.

In the Ladies division it was a narrow victory of just two points over Cambs by Lincolnshire trio Jackie Houghton 73, Janet Stennett 71 and Tracey Bridge 78.

At the end of the day Notts seniors cruised to victory by ten points over runners up Lincolnshire, Pat Dickman scoring a remarkable 96 out of D Class for Notts. Russ Hufton 88, Peter Armett 86, Andy Womble 83, Neil Orr 77 and Andy Brown 69 all played their part to secure overall victory and again those vital DT scores from Pat, Russ and Peter.

Runners up Lincolnshire did their best to spoil the party rattling up some good individual scores from Marvin Houghton 91 and Andy Harvey 90 but had to settle for second place, Nick Pearce, David Shepherd and Richard and Eric Cundall completed the Lincs team.

So the final reckoning gave Notts a memorable win in the Directors Trophy, and many congratulations must go to not just the ABT shooters but all of Team Nottinghamshire who all played such a valuable part in the end result.

A link to Directors Trophy final Scoreboard can be found HERE.

Finally a big thank you once again to Carl and all the crew at Nottingham who again ran a great day for us.

PRIZE MONEY

1^st A CLASS – DARREN PARSONS

1^ST B CLASS – G RUSSO

1^ST C CLASS- MARVIN HOUGHTON

2^ND C CLASS – PC WALLER

1^ST D CLASS- PAT DICKMAN

2^ND D CLASS- J MATTHEWSON & TONY CLAYTON