{"id":974,"date":"2020-06-06T16:23:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T16:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/?p=974"},"modified":"2020-06-07T15:37:20","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T15:37:20","slug":"day-11-sabu-meeting-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/2020\/06\/06\/day-11-sabu-meeting-day-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 11 – SABU meeting day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Team Diary Saturday 28th March 2009<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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After a very good evening reception for the SABU 80th birthday celebrations held at Grey College (high school home to many famous South African international rugby players and cricketers – including the late Hansie Cronje), we woke on Saturday morning to return to the more familiar Bloemfontein shooting program; the individual Scottish Sword competition at 300m and 900m in the morning, and the club teams match – the Dewar – in the afternoon at 300m and 600m. It was another anniversary of sorts this day also, as General Mac advised us after morning prayers that it was 30 years ago that the \u201cTartan Team\u201d of predominantly Scots, but also including some English and Irish shots as well as one Channel Islander, travelled to South Africa during what was euphemistically called \u201cthe difficult period\u201d and presented a magnificent sword as a trophy. Two members of that team, Hamish Hunter (Scotland) and Cliff Mallet (Channel Islands) were on the range, and received a well-deserved spontaneous round of applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To most of the team, the ten shots to count at 300m, the first range of the day, were perfectly straightforward although there were some sneaky wind changes that were enough to move the unwary into the inner. However, Mary Boston and the Irish shooter with whom she was paired, proceeded to fire 15 rounds to count, egged on by the fact that the register cards had 15 scoring spaces. She is already resigned to winning the \u201cMug of the Day\u201d hat, although – believe it or not – there are some other challengers (see below). Moving back to 900m, the wind was its usual self again, the first detail experiencing 1\u00bd to 8 right and the second detail, a stronger breeze but with a similar bracket. Matt Ensor mastered the conditions on the first detail to score a hardearned 50 to record the only 100 full score of the morning. His delight was palpable (see photos) as it was his first individual trophy win at a major meeting. Jon Underwood and Parag Patel both had high V 99\u2019s to come 2nd and 3rd respectively, giving the team a 1-2-3 clean sweep of the medals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We repaired to one of the shelters, where the captain lead the sandwich making party of Mary and Jane, as the usual \u201ctiffin-wallah\u201d \u2013 Parag Patel – was plying his other considerable skill on the second detail. When he and the others returned, we were regaled with several interesting \u201cHolly-isms\u201d \u2013 \u201cWhy does water go down the plug hole the other way south of the equator? Is it because the taps are on different sides of the basin?!\u201d \u201cHow do rockets refuel in space? I suppose that\u2019s what the space station is for\u201d. Her claim to want to be an Astrophysicist if she can\u2019t make it as a lawyer, clearly caught the eye of the \u201cMug of the Day\u201d nominating committee! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch, we began at 300m in the Dewar, but this was not without some controversy, as two of our four nominated teams (BCRC and English XX) were disqualified as a result of a ruling by SABU after last year, that a \u201cclub of Internationals\u201d could only shoot alongside in a club match of this type. Cynics have already suggested that ICFRA will soon be in session to write a rule as to when a rifle club is, or is not, a rifle club. This was a pity given that we had not been advised beforehand, but our 2 other teams (OCRA and Surrey RA) were able to uphold the team\u2019s honour, although OCRA had to rely on the appearance of Tim Clarke to make up the requisite numbers. This team started brightly enough, dropping only 3 points at 300m (including a \u201cnot so special\u201d magpie), but rather fell away at 600m in the strong-ish 4 minute average right wind. Full results were not available at the time of writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the prospect of no shooting on Sunday, and with the captain away for a 1993 GBRT to Africa reunion with Stephen and Jane, the rest of the team went out in various groups to paint the town different hues of red. The \u201cElder Statesmen\u201d were satisfied with a fine steak and some decent red wine, while the youngsters settled for copious shots of a local cocktail (a \u201cSpringbok\u201d \u2013 Cr\u00e8me de Menthe and Amarula!) and a journey through the bars and clubs of Bloemfontein with members of the other home nation teams. The stragglers were seen – and heard! \u2013 at 3.30am in the pool after what was unanimously felt to be \u201ca good evening\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scottish Sword (2 & 10 @ 300m & 500m)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Matt Ensor (England) 100.10 <\/li>
  2. Jon Underwood (England) 99.12 <\/li>
  3. Parag Patel (England) 99.9<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Team Diary Saturday 28th March 2009 After a very good evening reception for the SABU 80th birthday celebrations held at Grey College (high school home to many famous South African international rugby players and cricketers – including the late Hansie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","category-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1140,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/1140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sa2009\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}