Bisley 2011

Despite our eternal pessimism about the weather at Bisley we haven`t had a really bad day for several years. Wind and rain doesn`t stop us shooting - everyone has the same disadvantage - but it does make a very long and miserable day out! Luckily, we enjoyed glorious weather.

We were full of enthusiasm for our biggest competition of the year. The Ashburton is the National Schools Veterans annual shooting match, competing at 500 yards. The VRC hasn‟t missed a year since 1949, when we won with a final combined score of 242.0 /250.

Nowadays the winning teams usually rack up 250/250 and the result is decided on V Bulls, which score an extra .1. As often happens, half a dozen veterans arrived unexpectedly on the day, among them the Assheton brothers, Joe and Alistair (both shooting captains in their time at WB), back for the first time at Bisley since leaving school. but not for the last, according to Henry Bexley, who says that he, Bob Parsons, Joe and Alistair had a great day. Henry says, “Even though neither Bob or I qualified for the Ashburton, we stayed until the bitter end to watch a nail-biting finale, where Joe came third out of all of us. Good shooting! This’ll become an annual fixture for us and the veterans’ team membership is well worth joining.”

Shooting usually starts on the Siberia range (so-called because it's miles from anywhere!) – with our „in-house‟competition for the John Squire Cup, at 200 yards, the results of which dictate who competes in the Ashburton.

This year produced some interesting results. Sean Beer took the cup with an excellent 34.4 / 35. Matt Coombs 33.2, Mike Baggs 32.4 and Dave Pote 31.1 were hot on his heels. Terry Curtayne and Joe Assherton were in joint fifth with 25.1. Terry graciously stood down to let Joe qualify for the Ashburton team.

Having moved over to the Century Range everything went swimmingly for the Ashburton. Those of us not shooting sat around in glorious sunshine before gathering together for our prize giving. Sean collected the John Squire Cup, with Matt Coombs a close second. Dave Pote took the Sanders Cup home again (well done, Dave, three years on the trot! ), beating Sean Beer by one V Bull.

Terry Curtayne won the Donegal Badge at 200 yards. Many thanks to Sean Beer for organising everything at Bisley, and to Ann Beer for the wonderful lemon drizzle cake at tea-time.

Gold star for effort goes to Alistair Assheton who rode his motorbike over from Northern France for the day. Well done to all who turned up and competed.

We‟re always happy to welcome new "vets‟ and can usually find enough ammo (and time) for all to compete in the JSC. If you can let us know you're planning to come by the end of June we can enter more than one team in the Ashburton and more of us can shoot at 500 yards. (Chris Wilson. Capt. WBSVRC)