St George's Archery Club Clout team enjoy a fine July as Carol Fairbrother and Ian Harris dominate

St George's archers, from left, Danny Walsh, Fiona Harris, Ian Harris and Julian Smith. Picture: Submitted

St George’s Archery Club’s clout team enjoyed a successful July, with archers competing at the Cheshire Metric Championships on the Wirral and Archers of East Riding’s Clout Weekend in Driffield.

In the Cheshire shoot, the unstoppable Carol Fairbrother continued her fine form, winning the lady barebow title for the eleventh year and securing her Grand Master Bowman classification for 2023.

Meanwhile, Ray Chaplin claimed silver in the 165-metre recurve bow category and Julian Smith took third place shooting 185m in the compound bow class.

Barebow archer Ian Harris produced the performance of the weekend at the Archers of East Riding shoot.

On Saturday, in the imperial clout, he, Fiona Harris and Danny Walsh all took second place in the 180-yard gent recurve, 180-yard gent barebow and 140-yard lady barebow competitions respectively.

On Sunday, in the metric shoot, Ian Harris took centre stage, setting a new Yorkshire record score of 307 points for the 165m round. His score also broke the 300 threshold, qualifying him for a purple tassel award, which is the highest honour in clout archery.

Tassel awards are presented based on scores achieved, starting with a white tassel and progressing through black, blue, red and gold to the rarely-awarded purple badge. Only a handful of archers in the UK each year achieve purple tassel status.

St George’s won further medals with Fiona Harris second in the ladies’ 125m shoot, Danny Walsh third in the gent’s 165m recurve bow class, and Julian Smith the third compound archer shooting at 185m.

St George’s run beginners’ courses throughout the year and full details can be found on their website: www.harrogate-archery.co.uk.