Sunday the 9th of July was a glorious day for a number of reasons the most obvious being that the sun was out and the shorts were on but it was also the day of the South East England Olympic Skeet Championships hosted by Southend and District Gun Club. The day started with the a few regular Olympic Skeet (OSK) shooters arriving and some new ones with Clive Fry and myself deciding that a baptism of fire was needed and this day would be our very first go at Olympic Skeet, well why not and as Ivan Harvey said “you’ve got to start somewhere so why not today”.

The squads were formed by the able Southend Gun Club secretary Barry Dobbs and the shoot began with Rob Humphries and Allan Warren leading the way after the 1st round. I myself had settled my nerves and was more concerned about whether my gun was on the ISSF yellow strip which had been sown on the night before rather than whether I was hitting anything although I did post a semi respectable 18.

The day continued with the sun going in and out of the clouds so lots of changing of glasses was taking place but that was to be the only issue of the day. Some good shooting, good organisation and lots of laughter throughout may well have converted a couple of us to OSK. The overall competition was won by Allan Warren who posted a very respectable 90 with Ivan Harvey and Rob Humphries scoring 86 each. It was great to see some ladies as well as some youngsters along shooting as well with Jack Collier winning the juniors, A Tibbles winning the Colts and Alexandra Skeggs crowned ladies Champion. The overall results were,

South East England Champion 2017 – Allan Warren
Ladies Champion – Alexandra Skeggs
Veteran Champion – Allan Warren
Junior Champion – Jack Collier
Colts Champion – A Tibbles

In memory of a life time shooter and keen supporter of Olympic Skeet in particular we also had the Mick O’Donnell Memorial Trophy for the High Gun of the day which was so kindly supported on the day by Mick’s partner and 2 daughters. Thanks were passed on to them for their continued support. The trophy was won by Allan Warren with the high gun of the day 90/100.

An excellent day was laid on by Southend Gun Club and special thanks need to be extended to Barry Dobbs for his organisation and to Joe, Trevor and Keith for the refereeing on the day.

I have no doubt you will be seeing this Olympic Skeet convert at other completions soon hopefully with better scores.