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Braidwood Sporting Clays |
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Home International Weekend - photos copyright of Rob Gray, Digitalpic
Saturday's conditions were almost perfect for the 156 competitors to shoot the course set up by Bob Clark and Jim Black. The course was designed as two 50 target layouts, Red and Blue, on 14 stands overall. The slightly stiffer Red layout, reflected in the scores, was mainly in the open area whereas the Blue layout was based in the wooded area. Shooting started promptly at 10am with each squad starting on a different stand and working their way around one of the layouts before a break for lunch at the clubhouse. The competition resumed at 1.15 and all 156 guns had finished by 3.30. All ran very smoothly with Internationalists commenting on a good variation and presentation of targets. By the end of the morning session it looked obvious that hot favourites, the England senior team, were once again on target to win. Having already shot the Red layout Paul Simpson was sitting top of the leader-board on 44. In the other sections England's very strong partnerships of Paddy Howe and Brian Hodges, Veterans and Michael Simpson and Mark Winser, Juniors were also several targets ahead at the halfway stage while Scotland's ladies, Edith Barnes and Audrey Boyd were sitting in top spot. If they could hold it together for the afternoon they could prevent England making a clean sweep. As the squads began arriving back at the clubhouse all eyes were on the master score-board. Rumour had it that Paul Simpson had only dropped 2 targets on the blue layout. He hit all the targets on his final stand and completed his round on a brilliant score of 92. Gary Meikle (Scot) and Andy Moon (Eng) both ended up on 85 and had to shoot-off for the 'Captains Cup', Edith Barnes (Scot) and Margerita McClay( N.Ire) shot-off to determine Ladies High Gun and John Wickham and Colin Doyle for Ireland's High Gun position. The shoot offs took place over 2 stands with the final results and positions determined by single targets. Tony Heeks, England's team manager said he'd had great feed back from the team members and that it was the best Home International he had been to for a number of years. It was a really good day and the atmosphere among the shooters, scorers and staff was tremendous continuing into the evening with a banquet and awards ceremony. Final results: Sunday's Open event gave others the opportunity to compete against the Internationalist top guns with a record 205 entry. The layout had been tweaked from the previous day with minor changes to angles and speeds, a couple of completely new targets introduced to the main shoot and an 8 target Pool Stand added. Once again, the overall standard of shooting was excellent, the weather magnanimous and the atmosphere fun and friendly. This time High Gun was shared by Scotland's Dean Richardson and Wales' Martin Myres both breaking 94, just 1 clear of Saturday's winner, Paul Simpson. English Veteran, Brian Hodges also broke 93 to win his class outright. Welshman, A White, 92, won A class - Braidwood member, Gordon Boertien, 89, B class - Braidwood's Paul Hermiston and C Settle, Jersey tied C class on 74. Another Braidwood man, Donald Livingston, shot 83 in his first ever 100 birder to win the Unclassified section outright. England's M Simpson, 83, beat Scotland's Ian Cochrane by 1 to the Junior class and once again, Edith Barnes took top slot in the Ladies again breaking 83. Willie Gordon won the Pool, Martin Myres was 2nd and M Winser 3rd. back to Gallery
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The
event kicked off with official practice day on Friday when hordes
of shooters descended on the Ground to familiarise themselves with
the background ready for Saturday's main event. Many of the local
hotels and guesthouses were fully booked with around 400 coming
to the Borders to compete, spectate and support.
Tournament Individual High Gun: Paul Simpson 92