RECORD BREAKING ATTENDANCE FOR THE IC SPORTING

It seemed like all roads led to Kegworth over the two days of the East Midlands Intercounties Sporting at Kegworth over the weekend, with a new East Midlands Championship attendance record of 350 shooters, smashing the previous record held by Barrow Heath of 291 shooters from last season, although that event was held over one day.

The attendance very nearly beat the all-time record in the region which was way back in 2000 and for the England sporting selection shoot where 390 turned up to shoot at Grimsthorpe.

Looking at the competition we had a very healthy turnout from the county teams, with 8 full senior teams, 7 veterans teams, 5 from Ladies and very pleasingly 8 Junior teams, a point which is always good to see with many of the youngsters representing their county for the first time.

The weather was after days of rain superb, a slight breeze on Saturday but virtually nothing on the Sunday and feeling pleasantly warm.

For the first time last year after a request from the hosting ground we tried unsquadded, this year we pushed the boat out even further and increased the number of targets to 120 birds over 15 stands, again unsquadded. This move seems on the whole to have been well received, the format probably wouldn’t suit everyone, but you’re never going to please everyone on the same day. I spoke too many on the final day and the comments were very favourable, many saying the 120 targets gave it a real championship feel.

The scoreboard showing just the competion shooters could barely cope !

The team awards are as ever always hotly contested with over the years counties such as Suffolk, Norfolk, Northants and more latterly Bedfordshire all being involved in the top placing’s. Last year Suffolk comfortably won in the seniors with Bedfordshire as their nearest rivals and Northants in third.

This year it became clear very quickly that one county were dominating proceedings, ton plus scores came in time and time again for the Northants seniors and at one stage it looked like they would win it by a country mile, but at the death Bedfordshire almost snatched it from the long-time leaders, in the end finishing just 7 clays short and ended the day as bridesmaids once again.

The Northants scoring was phenomenal with 5 shooters recording scores all north of 100 ending up with a team score of 619/720, Jez Towell and Jonathon Preece top scored on 107 and were ably backed up by Chris Sumner (104), Mick Russell (96), Matt Shepard (92), Paul Cooper (97), Steve Smith (100) and Mark Massey (104) to win the team title.

Team Bedfordshire also scored heavily with Andrew Clifton and G Moore joint top scoring on 104, M Stevenson, Steve Leonard and Steve Whitelock all scoring 103, Steve Whinnett (93), S Earl (82) and G Smith (95) to give them the runners up glassware.

In the senior competition the top regional score was from Puff Baker from Suffolk scoring 109, whilst the overall HG was Brett Hand with a superb 111 ex 120.

Louise Smith & Emma Nelson - Northamptonshire

In Ladies it was more good news for Northants as they just edged over the winning line beating nearest rivals Lincolnshire by just 3 clays. Louise Smith top scored for Northants on 83 with support from team manager and England new cap Emma Nelson scoring 78 and Rose Palmer (78), the Northants quartet was completed by Izzy Russell who has been winning a few medals in the individual championships this year.

This year’s highest scoring lady was Rachel Willcock from Leicestershire with a great score of 98.

Steve Brightwell & John Wells - Leicestershire

In Vets it was a case of business as usual with the Leicestershire foursome winning for the fourth year in a row, and once again it was Steve Brightwell who led from the front scoring 107 which also was the top score in Vets. Steve as usual had John Wells as his able sidekick, John scoring 94 to get them over the line; Arnie Heister (93) and R Carter (82) completed the winning line up.

In juniors it was the turn of Cambridgeshire to take the title with Taylor Hedgecock top scoring on 103, which was also enough to win him yet another Junior High Gun trophy, Dan Mawby (97) and Georgia Moule (82) who has recently won her first cap for the England Sporting team and the GB FITASC team completed the winning score over nearest rivals Suffolk juniors.

Finally grateful thanks to John & Janet at Kegworth and all their staff and referees, they have now achieved 3 attendance records in recent years and I know have personally put in a lot of hard work and time into making these events a great success, John I know only got a couple of hours sleep over the weekend, and also generously paid the regional levy out of his own pocket.