Denstone College Pupils take part in Shooting Competition

Last week Denstone College took six senior guns and four junior guns of varied experience down to the rolling rural hills of Oxfordshire, to the Oxfordshire Shooting School in Enstone. We had 2 senior teams and 1 junior team in the national schools clay competition. First on the list to do, was to enjoy a hog roast while listening to the safety briefing before the competition began

Upon arrival, our country gent/farmer’s son attire intimidated our opposition into believing we were the real deal. Henry Parrott wielding his grandfather’s ancient side-by-side classic shotgun further accentuated this impression. This psychological advantage was soon thwarted when our first shot was fired, all a little rusty with the game shooting season having finished 4 months previous. I am sure the phrase “all the gear, no idea” wavered in the minds of our opponents. However, this would be a rather unfair judgement as once warmed up, we began registering decent scores although the deficit proved too great to catch the other schools that run clay shooting clubs, shooting 2 or 3 times a week.

On completion of the individual event Henry Parrott scored 42/60 and was our senior top gun, versus the competition top gun of 54/60. Harvey Patrick was our junior top gun with 29/60, which ranked 3rd overall. 1st place got a whopping 51/60! It was the team pheasant flurry event at the end where our true aptitude for shooting came into its own, where composure and calculation were eclipsed by a natural instinct for shooting. Here all 3 teams scored really well and gave the crowd a firework display as the clays were shattered in mid-air time and time again. Our senior team of Rob Gray, George Beard, Henry Parrott and Joe Thowless-Reeves scored an impressive 48/60 to come 4th in the team event. The experienced shots in the crowd made a point of personally congratulating Henry on his ability to consistently drop a crossing high bird, which all the other teams failed to hit.

Overall the Denstone College Junior team of Harvey Patrick, Jonnie Sanders, Charlie Hughes and Tom Gray came 2nd, which was a fantastic result, especially considering the majority of the team had only recently picked up a gun for the first time.

It was a good day out enjoyed by all and certainly one to repeat.