President’s Trophy held at town working men’s club

AFTER having two weeks off over the festive period the Hinckley Air Rifle League returned to action with the shooting of the Presidents’ Trophy at the Hinckley Working Men’s Club.

Primarily run to raise money for the league’s chosen charity – the local air ambulance – the event also gave a chance for the league’s members to ease themselves back into competition in a fun competition.

For this year’s event each competing shooter shot their score and then once all the entrants had finished those scores were randomly drawn together into teams of three with the winning team having the highest aggregate score.

Individually the best score on the night came from Karl Bunting who shot an unimprovable 30.6, just ahead of Andrew Cryer’s 30.4 and Dave Brown’s 30.3.

Paul Huddlestone (29.4), Giles Headley (29.3), Alison Smith (29.2) and Rikki Hammersley (29.1) all missed just one shot whilst Richard Green (28.3), Rob Forman (28.3), Phil Hood (28.2) and John Bray (28.2) were a shot further back. Bob West came top of the 27s with his 27.2, fractionally ahead of the 27.1s of Lee Foskett, Simon Grewcock and Jeanette Mulkeirins, who themselves outscored Daniel Lakin’s 27.0 by the same margin.

Finally, the noteworthy individual scores were rounded out by the 26.2s of Tom Bray, Taryn Cockerill, Adam Padamsey and Darren Statham; the 26.1s of Jackie West, Leanne Simpson, John Stevenson and Roy Pritchard; and the 26.0s of Todd Astill, Rebecca Horsler and Steve Reynolds.

Once the shooting had finished the teams of three were randomly drawn, a draw which gave the fourth place to Rikki Hammersley, Jackie West and Bob West, who finished with a total of 82.4. Just 0.2 ahead were the combination of Alison Smith, Richard White and Paul Huddlestone with their 82.6; whilst Denise Kato, John Bray and Karl Bunting finished in second with their 83.8 total; leaving the top position to the team consisting of Dave Brown, Lee

Foskett and Phil Hood, who finished with 85.6.

Running in parallel with the main competition was a “Whisky” shoot (although the prize for winning was actually a bottle of brandy) which was shot on what, at first glance, appeared to be a standard target but which actually had a bull that two thirds the diameter of a regular target.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the extra difficulty this posed this proved to be a popular competition and continued even when the main match had completed.

For a long time, the leaders were Andrew Cryer and Adam Padamsey, who managed to score 23s from their five shots whilst Tom Bray and Giles

Headley all managed 22s, with Rebecca Horsler, Collene Smith and John Bray another shot adrift with their 21s. However, just as the President, Chris Rose, was coming up with a scheme to separate the top two, Karl Bunting went and got an excellent 24 (missing just his last) to break the impasse.

Paul Huddlestone came very close to matching this but his final shot failed to ring the bell and he had to be satisfied with 23 and the joint runnerup spot.

In all, between the entrance fees for the Presidents’ Trophy, the entrance fees for the “Whisky” shoot, and the money made from the sale of raffle tickets the league raised a total of £214 for the Air Ambulance.