Sunday, February 8, was a very special day in the calendar of the Pattaya Archery Club as it held its first-ever archery competition against another club – Platinum Archery Association of Bangkok – and both clubs shared the medals, with honours even when the competition was finished.
It took nearly five months of negotiating, planning and preparing for this ground-breaking event, but that was time and effort well spent as the competition was seen as a great success by all those who took part.
Pattaya Archery Club’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams: (left to right) Stuart, Piya, Gilbert, Wisit, Naruemon, Suphan and Eric.
As Pattaya Archery Club had never hosted a competition against another club before, there was inevitably a huge amount of preparatory work to be done. The club’s Treasurer, Stuart Davies, played a major role in making the target number boards and getting the targets positioned correctly, and the range marked up on the day. His wife, Nid, also did a sterling job in preparing the certificates and other computer-based items that enabled the event to progress smoothly and professionally.
The team from Bangkok arrived at Pattaya Archery Club’s splendid range in the Shooting and Adventure Park at Hua Yai … and joined the Pattaya archers in practicing before the competition began.
There were two teams from each club and each had three archers. The rules called for 36 arrows at 30 metres for the ‘A’ teams from each club, and 36 arrows at 18 metres for the ‘B’ teams. Platinum won the ‘A’ team competition and Pattaya Archery Club won the ‘B’ team category.
Pattaya’s ‘A’ team consisted of Stuart Davies (Wales), Gilbert Pelissier (France) and ‘Naruemon’ the club’s best lady archer from Thailand. They scored a collective total of 925 points against the 975 total points scored by Platinum’s ‘A’ team. Stuart Davies was the best shot for Pattaya, scoring 309 points against Gilbert’s 308 and Naruemon’s 308 points.
Pattaya’s ‘B’ team was made up of three disabled archers – ‘Piya’, ‘Wisit’ and ‘Suphan’. All three had begun their archery careers with Pattaya Archery Club, starting from scratch and progressing to quite a high level of accuracy. They scored 888 collective points against the 510 points by Platinum’s ‘B’ team.
Honours were also even in the fun event, the Best Gold Cup awards (nearest the pinhole -the exact centre of the target on a chosen end) when ‘Natthapoom’ from Platinum ‘A’ team won at 30 metres, after he put an arrow bisecting the pinhole cross on his target, and for Pattaya Archery Club’s ‘B’ team, our disabled member ‘Piya’ scared the pinhole enough to be awarded the Gold Cup from the 18 metre distance.
Another long established archery tradition from England is appointing a ‘Lady Paramount’ to present the two Best Gold Cups and the team medals and certificates at the end of the competition. This was a first for the Bangkok archers and, who knows, we may have started a new concept for Thai archery. Pattaya’s ‘Lady Paramount’ was Nid Davies and she did a superb job of officiating on the day.
Other Pattaya Archery Club members helped to make the competition a great success. These include Garrie Jones and Claude Collapinto who acted as scorers, which is quite a tiring role in the heat of a Pattaya afternoon, and John de Liong-A-Jin plus newcomers Grant and Clive and his daughter Kelly who were all a great help in preparing the range for the competition.
The tournament ended at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon with smiles, handshakes and group photos to conclude the event. Somchai (Peter), the President of Platinum Archery Association, invited Pattaya Archery Club to go to Bangkok at some time in the future to compete against them again.
Note: Pattaya Archery Club meets on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, beginning at 10.00 am and finishing at about noon or thereafter. Everyone is welcome to come along to the Pattaya Shooting and Adventure Park in Hua Yai and find out what it is all about. For more details visit Pattaya Archery Club’s website at www. pattayaarcheryclub.com, or telephone Eric, the club’s President, on 089 535 1193
