English Skeet Championships

NCSC

12th April

There were 22 entries fron the County that entered this event which was a shared competition with Sussex. It was going to be a day of mixed weather with squally showers, sunshine and the odd heavy downpour of hailstones.

Andy Pye and his son Ben where some of the first competitors out and returned almost identical scores of 98 & 97 from this formidable father and son team. Ross Pottinger who is normally a contender in this championship shot an unusual 21 on his first line to put him out of contention but a few others posting 23 &24 were not yet out of the running, Steve Cross and Eric Davis shot consistently but kept loosing an odd target, slipping them down the leader board to both finish with 95. Kristina Payne showed the way for the Ladies with consistent scores of  22,22,23,23 to finish on 90.

So the Pye's were 1st and 2nd until one of the stalwarts of the Berkshire Skeet scene Tony May started his campaign on the last squad of the day and posting a 98 to equal Andy Pye's score from the first squad of the day.

So it was going to be a repeat of last year with a shoot off to decide the County Champion, there was nothing to split these 2 after 25 targets with both men shooting straight and looking like they would never miss so it was down to peg 4 and doubles.

Andy took to the peg and called the first pair, the high bird disappeared into fragments followed by the low bird. Reload and call again this time it was the low bird first but it made no difference to the outcome with both targets killed. Now it was Tony's turn and with a call of pull they were on their way, the high bird disintegrates but the low bird continued on its way to leave us with a new County Champion Andy Pye.

Yet another great competition and thank you to all who turned out. Andy Pye was County Champion with 98+25+4, runner up and Veterans Champion was Tony May on 98+25+1, Ladies Champion was Kristina Payne with 90 and Junior Champion was Ben Pye with 97. We now have perpetual class trophies donated by the some of the Skeet shooters involved and these went to Steve Cross 'AA' with 95, Eric Davis 'A' with 95, Matt Sell 'B' with 84 and once again Nobby Rolls shows great form with 92 to win 'C' class.

Many thanks to Andrew Halfacre and Eric Davis for sorting everything out on the day.