The annual intercollege sporting event, the Carter Shield, returned for its penultimate event of the year on Sunday 21st May. After previously seeing the colleges battle it out in dodgeball and badminton, it was time for another less represented sport to shine; enter Archery.
SCAN caught up with Archery Club Exec member and event organiser Alex Goldsack, who said that archery offers a different level of competition from the previous sports played in this year’s Carter Shield, as it offers a level playing field. Not only is the pace of the sport completely different, the experience levels of the players are also different. Many people have experience with sports such as badminton and dodgeball, yet archery near enough offers a level playing field and a new opportunity for all players. Alex said that none of the players came with any real expectation, with the vast majority arriving to simply shoot some arrows with their friends and in true Carter Shield fashion, have some fun.
Going into the event, Lonsdale topped the scoring after successive victories in the first two events, and after winning the badminton last time round they claimed they were going to come back to ‘destroy and demolish’ the next event. It was now time to put their money where their mouth is, and victory at this event would all but guarantee that the trophy heads to south west campus for a year.
Due to archery being a new sport for many of the players, the day began with a standard safety exercise, demonstrating how to properly and safely hold and fire the bow. After this had been completed, it was time to get the event underway.
Alex stated that he was delighted by how much the players got into it, with all players wanting to find out how each other did. He stated that another unique thing offered by archery is that, whilst the scoring is team based, all the shooting is individual, so there were opportunities for mini in-college rivalries and personal glory to emerge as well to add to the fun.
The way the format was worked was 5 players representing each college each round, and many colleges had a completely different set of 5 for each round, such was the turnout of the event. There was 3 rounds and unlike normal archery, due to the time constraints it was a cumulative score, the college who scored the highest amount of points overall being declared the winner.
After a tensed three rounds, the Lonsdale clean sweep was over as Fylde awere declared as the winner, with Grizedale coming in a close second. These results have left the overall competition open for a while, meaning that the next event, due to be held in the coming few weeks, will be all to play for and promises to be exciting.
The Carter Shield is all about fun, however, and Alex says that he was delighted at the level of commitment and excitement generated at the event, and judging by the success of the event, archery was a great choice for Carter Shield round 3.
