Birmingham archers made history on the 19th March
2016; they won the BUTTS league experienced shield for the first time in 20
years! The pressure was on this weekend as the team travelled to Nottingham
Trent University to compete in the BUTTS League Indoor Championships, tied point
for point with Warwick for the title. In order for Birmingham to win the
league, they had to win the championships, and they did it in style, with a
first place medal in each of the four recurve categories!
In gents recurve, sports scholar Ashe Morgan stepped up and
shot an incredible 593/600 to take the gold medal from Warwick’s Tom Hall by 15
points! Also in the gents top ten were Francis Berti and Christopher Avins on
563 and 561 respectively. In ladies recurve, Rebekah Tipping finished on 567 to
take the gold, ahead of Oxford’s Charlie Birch, by 5 points. Catherine Jackson
also shot a solid score of 550 to finish in 5th place.
Birmingham novices were as solid as ever, finishing the
league unbeaten and storming to victory in the championships, with Tim Spankie
winning novice gents recurve on 527, and Tupa Silva winning ladies recurve on
520, an impressive 41 points clear of second place!
The indoor championship event is different to the other
league fixtures as it involves a head to head event, where the top 8 archers
face off against one another for an extra set of medals. The Birmingham archers
didn’t let down here either with gold medals for both Rebekah Tipping and Time
Spankie, silver medals for Ashe Morgan and Tupa Silva, and a bronze medal for
Catherine Jackson, who battled to win this medal after seeding in 5th
place in the ranking round!
After the competition, the archers went to The Crown Plaza
in Nottingham to attend the BUTTS ball and receive their awards. The
experienced team of Ashe Morgan, Rebekah Tipping, Francis Berti and Christopher
Avins won an extra set of gold medals for their championship result. Their
total score was 2287/2400, followed by Loughborough on 2264 and Warwick on
2255. This also sealed the result for the league, where Birmingham and Warwick
were previously tied, but after this event Birmingham took the top spot. The
team from the day were then were joined by Team Captain Sam Rees to pick up the
shield for the BUTTS league.
The novice team of Tim Spankie, Tupa Silva, Guy Coop and
Jamal Rahman picked up their gold medals for the championship event too, and also
received their shield for winning the league.
There were extra awards given out at the event too, a trophy
for highest scoring archer in each category combined over all league fixtures,
was presented. The ladies recurve trophy went to Birmingham’s Rebekah Tipping.
Another award was presented to Tupa Silva for highest scoring lady novice in a separate
competition known as “Ultimate Archer” where scores for three different rounds
over the indoor season must be submitted to the league organiser in order to
compete.
Our archers had a fantastic weekend that marked the end of
the best indoor season for Birmingham in 20 years. They should all be
incredibly proud of themselves and their team mates! We look forward to much of
the same for BUCS and BUTTS Outdoor champs!
Coach Richard Cambridge said this
about the result: "I'm
so pleased for the team. Their persistent, focused hard work continues to bring
them success. We are now looking forward to the challenges of the outdoor
season."
