EAST MIDLANDS INTERCOUNTIES SKEET

SENIOR TEAM CHAMPIONS - NORTHANTS

Well, the sun had finally got his hat on, and as you know there’s a song in there somewhere…cough, cough.

Anyway, on with the serious business of the competition in hand.

All 8 counties managed to enter at least one team in a category but sadly none managed to raise a junior team, and it was great to see a small contingent from Bedfordshire who are not normally renowned for their prowess in skeet circles, they will doubtless come into their own when the sporting disciplines are on the menu.

The first guns rang out promptly at 9-00am, bang on schedule and as is the way at Nottingham things ran smoothly all day.

A quick glance at the teams and I felt straight away that Northants with 4 current or former England skeet shooters in their ranks had to be red hot favourites especially if the targets were running on rails, and of course they were, with lovely warm conditions, hardly a cloud in the sky and the slightest of breezes just to keep you cool in the rising temperatures.

The first person making the headlines was the machine-like dependability of Notts Veteran Allen Warren who didn’t shock anyone scoring the perfect ton, you have to say he is a class act and can equally switch between disciplines with relative ease, how does he make it look so easy?

ALLEN WARREN - NOTTINGHAMSHIRE VETS

Neil Orr backed Allen up with a very decent 97 meaning that the Veterans Team title had almost been wrapped up before other counties got to the layouts. Kevin Holliday and Andrew Nicholls completed the Notts quartet and as expected nobody really laid a glove on them running out winners by 8 clays over nearest rivals Lincolnshire who had Doug Moore as their top scorer on 97/100.

In Seniors Notts set the benchmark for the day scoring 563/600 with Rob Denoon top scoring on 99. Lincolnshire bettered that shortly after as did a quickly reshuffled Cambs team, but as Northants got going the scores started piling in and the glassware had only one destination. Leon Gill, skipper Neil Faulkner and the ever dependable Mick Russell all scored 98, and were well backed up by Dave Morgan 97, Mick Rolstone 97, Stuart Lobley 94, John Spademan 92 and Neil Etheridge 95 giving them a winning team total of 583/600, fourteen clays clear of Runners-Up Cambridgeshire  who had Albert Taylor, Tim Jones, Tony Randall, Pete Cook, Marcus Lord, Adam Hallybone, and last but certainly not least junior Ethan Lord who scored a superb 98/100 to give him the Junior High Gun Trophy.

SENIOR TEAM RUNNERS UP - CAMBRIDGESHIRE

The Northants Ladies were equally as impressive winning by a huge 15 clays over next best county Lincolnshire, Isabel Russell another England shooter led the way outscoring all her Senior Team Northants teammates with an impressive 99/100, Isabel was well backed up by Helen Wooton 87 to give them victory, Penny Spademan and Charlotte Franklyn completed the winning Northants team.

LADIES TEAM CHAMPIONS - NORTHANTS

As always thanks to Carl and his team at Nottingham & District who as always looked after us at the highest level.

The Intercounties now moves to the East of England SG next weekend where we have the Intercounties Sporting.