Prescott Cup 2024 - North Cornwall Shooting Ground 18/5/24

Today, North Cornwall Shooting Ground once again held the Prescott Cup, a memorial trophy inaugurated and first shot for in 2019 in memory of John Prescott.

John was a very close friend of NCSG who became an integral part of the team there and did much to help run the ground, including painting fences, spraying weedkiller, watching over the kitchen, refereeing on practice and competition days, and doing the most essential task of all - providing proper Cornish pasties.

I managed to win that first shoot in its original form of a two-day event, posting scores of 100/297 and 100/299, and by doing so, had the honour of being the first name engraved on the shiny new nameplate.

Then Covid happened. For a while, shooting was allowed to continue under restrictions, but holding a two-day event with 60+ shooters on the same ground was out of the question (and against the rules). It wasn’t until well into 2021 when the restrictions started to ease, but it still wasn’t possible to hold the shoot.

At last, in 2022, things were well on the way back to normality, and once again we all descended on NCSG. After the privilege of taking care of the cup for 2 years, my attempt to defend it was unsuccessful, and the weekend culminated perfectly in a shoot-off between Phil Morgan and Nick Shadrick (a video of which is here, and the blog posts I did at the time are here - Day 1 and Day 2). Nick put up a strong challenge, but Phil prevailed and duly added his name to the trophy.

In 2023, the prices of many things went crazy as the economy gathered speed again and world events played their part (Mr Putin decided he wanted to take possession of former USSR territory by force, amongst other things). The shoot took place, but was reduced to one day to help everybody with the cost.

Sadly, this decision took away a good chunk of its character, but not its spirit. 6 squads of shooters fought it out in windy conditions, and the man to emerge from that battle as High Gun was Dave Sleeman with a winning score of 98/290. (You can read my post about that shoot here).

That brings us back to now, a gorgeous, sunny day in May 2024. 7 squads of shooters turned out to enjoy the warm, perfect weather; high clouds, the slightest breeze, and absolutely no sign at all of the forecast clouds and potential rain.

With my recent form and successes (winning the Dougall Memorial in 2023, and making the England DTL team this year for the third time, and with a top 5 qualifying position – meaning I’ll be representing England at the European and World Championships as well as the Home International and British Open), I naturally turned up with certain expectations.

At half way, all was going well. I’d been lucky a few times and taken the tiniest pieces off a few targets (good job the referees had good eyesight!), but they all count, and after 50 targets I was on a full house of 50/150.

I needed to be, because as well as Dave returning to defend his title, the squad list contained names such as Chris Smyth (regular Devon DTL Champion and Inter-county Team Captain, former England DTL Team Captain, and one of my shoot-off opponents from last year’s Dougall Memorial); Barny Jackson (up and coming DTL shot with a South West Championship and an England Team cap to his name); Ben Keightley (another up and coming DTL shot with an England Team attempt under his belt, struggling for form right now, but knows how to shoot a big score); Martin Howe (Martin’s name is also on the Dougall trophy, and he’s no stranger to the DTL range despite predominantly shooting Sporting and Skeet); and Gary Burton (a formidable DTL and ABT shooter who has recently returned to shooting after a break of 4 years, and not far off where he was when he stopped!). Dave himself has shot for England, and is enjoying a resurgence in his shooting career, bringing home the A Class trophy from the Dougall last year. And sprinkled amongst the rest were recent, current, and former England shooters.

While I was in the lead at that moment, I had no room for error. Barny was well and truly breathing down my neck on 50/149, just one point behind me. Martin was also shooting well and holding 3rd overall on 49/146. Dave had blasted his way through a 25/75 to start but then dropped 5 points in round 2, and he was now in 4th overall on 49/145. Rounding out the leading group were Richard Ryan and Andy Heywood, both on 49/144.

Then something subtly changed. Suddenly, in round 3, I was getting a lot more chippy breaks than smoke clouds, but I didn’t know why. It didn’t feel like I was doing anything different, but I obviously was because first I missed one completely, then second-barrelled the next one and one later on for good measure.

The only reason I can think of was drifting concentration, leading to losing smoothness and control. Someone mentioned the light, but even though the day had become very bright and the targets had become less defined against the white sky, I could still see them well enough. There was a slight breeze too, but nothing that did anything significant to the targets.

The view from layout 3 outside scoring position, squad mid change - the camera has toned the light down quite a bit!

Barny had a similar experience to me, twice firing both barrels and frowning at the target as it drifted on unscathed while thinking, “Why didn’t you break??”, to go with a second-barrel he wasn’t expecting.

Dave and Martin had no such trouble. Dave’s 25/74 closed the gap on me to put him just 1 point behind, while Martin’s perfect 25/75 catapulted him into the lead, 1 point in front.

So as is typical in DTL competitions, it all came down to the last 25 targets.

I knew I needed all of them, and all first barrel kills. But the gremlins that had decided to make my day interesting had other ideas. Another miss and second barrel left me a bit annoyed with myself to say the least. Going from being on 50/150 to dropping 9 points and finishing on 98/291 made me feel like I’d thrown away the win. Barny had a worse final round than me, so it all depended on Dave and Martin.

Hmm - that wasn’t the plan…

Watching Martin shoot, I was convinced he would smoke his way through another 25 – but amazingly he missed two whole targets and ended up 1 point behind me on 97/290. Dave simply carried on hammering away and shot a perfect last round, finishing with a High Gun score of 99/294, and defending the trophy in style. Well shot sir!

Well done Dave!

Of the other names I mentioned earlier, Chris had a very uncharacteristic poor day, struggling to get going and not managing to hit a 25 straight at all which is practically unheard of.

Ben is working through a gun change and fit adjustment, and it showed. His score today is certainly not representative of what he can do, and I hope he can get back on track swiftly.

And Gary had a shaky start with 3 misses and 2 second-barrels, but showed his class and dug in hard, shooting three 25 straights with only 4 more second barrels and ending up on 98/288.

All in all it was a cracking day. Awesome weather, plenty of good shooting, and some close competition right up until the end.

Again, well shot Dave, well shot to all class winners (list below), thank you to everybody for making it a really enjoyable day, and of course, thank you to Simon, Andy, and Albert for providing us with yet another top notch and well run shoot.

Reflecting afterwards, yes, I was annoyed at myself for making mistakes and “throwing away” the win. But I still finished 2nd in AA and 2nd overall, only 3 points behind Dave. That ain’t bad.

And, as I said to Barny, I would much rather have a rougher day today than at the Fauxdegla DTL Grand Prix next week!

The full list of class winners:

High Gun and 1st in AA Class

David Sleeman 99/294

AA Class

2nd Rob Dietz 98/291

A Class

1st Martin Howe 97/290

2nd Gary Burton 98/288

3rd Andy Heywood 96/282

4th Andy Vanstone 96/279

B Class

1st Keith Woolcock 94/279

C Class

1st Paul Garnsworthy 94/272

2nd Rob Northey 93/268