On the 21st and 22nd of June the All British Field Championships were held in Ballywalter Park, Ards, County Down, Northern Ireland. There were about 120 entries from all over the United Kingdom. Fort Purbrook had 3 archers competing, and Forest Of Bere had 2, making 5 archers from Hampshire in all.

We had Duncan Elm (FP) and Brian Briggs (FoB) in the Gents Traditional category, Daniel Hawley (FP) in Gents Longbow, Charlotte Hawley (FP) in Ladies Traditional, and Paul Briggs (FoB) in U18 Boys Longbow.

The Fort Purbrook archers decided to stay in the Boys Brigade hostel that was arranged by the organisers, and whilst the beds could have been more comfortable the rest of the facilities were good, and the food was superb, especially on Sunday evening when we were served a full roast dinner including the mashed potato and spring onion mix that the Irish call Traditional Champ, which was very appropriate for one of our party!

The competition was split over two separate courses, the unsighted archers shot the marked course on Saturday and the unmarked course on Sunday. Both courses were well set up with challenging shots using the terrain well to provide a tricky course that was very enjoyable to shoot.

The marked course was set mostly in the gardens of Ballywalter House providing an open course but with some shots from bright sunshine into the dark shadows provided by trees and bushes, and a shot across a lake to keep things interesting.  

The unmarked course was in the ancient woodland with maximum use made of dead ground and fallen trees to make distance judging as awkward as possible.

The Hampshire archers did very well with Paul, Daniel and Duncan all taking home the Gold medal in their respective categories, and Duncan getting a last minute call to shoot for the England team, putting in a superb score to help England win the Home Nations trophy making a total of 4 gold medals coming home to Hampshire, not a bad haul for a National Championships!