ENGLISH OPEN DTL

HELD AT BYWELL SHOOTING GROUND

30^TH AUGUST

 

The weather for Bank Holiday weekends always tends to be unpredictable but one could be forgiven for thinking that at least the August bank holiday weekend would be hospitable.  Alas, nothing could be further from the truth.  It was wild, it was wet, and it was windy, and you know things are bad when Keith Ritchie abandons his shorts for something a little more insulating. 

 

In actual fact, the day of the English Open was much improved so in spite of being blown and battered for the previous two days our teams came back fighting.  As always, we were taking on the North Region in their own backyard and their team contains some very high-flying names in the DTL world such as Keith Bond, Nigel Chapman, Ian Mullarkey and Paul Chaplow. 

 

I mention this so that it can be appreciated what a magnificent victory it is for the East Midlands Seniors to have beaten such a team by just 4 points.  Very often it is the bottom scores from a squad which makes the difference between winning and losing but in this case it was some brilliant shooting from Marty Smith (Lincs) 295 and Steve Janes (Beds) 295, our top two scorers, that gave us the winning points. 

 

These two were ably backed up by the rest of squad made up of the best DTL shooters selected from around our Region.  Russ Hufton (Notts) and Paul Meakin (Notts) could not be separated on 292 and neither could Geoff Howlett (Suffolk) and Stuart Whitehead (Lincs) on 290.  Curtis Woolley (Notts) 284, Mark Joyce (Leics) 283, Mark Shaw (Lincs) 280 and John Stanley (Northants) 266 made up the rest of the winning squad.

 

Our Ladies, Hazel Whiten, (Cambs), Saira Boardman (Lincs) and Alix Gregory (Notts) did not fare so well but they were up against a Northern Ladies team all of which are England DTL shooters so it was always going to be a big ask but the girls did very well as did the veteran team of Ken Weaver (Beds), Richard Gray (Lincs) and Nigel Lovatt (Lincs).

 

Congratulations and well shot to all, your success means that East Midlands teams have picked up awards in all 4 of the regional team events this year.