Brief, not always strictly accurate, but there all the same. BUTC appeared in Edinburgh Evening News. Alternatively, go into the Scotsman website, select Sport, Other Sport.
The first British University Team Championships were in Edinburgh on Saturday 1st March 2003. Twenty-eight sides took part in half-FITA 1 qualification round, before going into a last 32 knock-out round. With 84 individual competitors and a small army of helpers together with most of the usual ACME suspects, there were updates every end as each team shot 9 arrows. In the qualifying as well as the expected performaces Edinburgh (A 1st B 2nd), Imperial (A 3rd, B 4th) and York (A 5th) there were strong performances from Loughborough (A 6th) and Aberdeen (7th) who had been as high as 4th at one point despite not entering a team to BUSA at all. ULU qualified in 8th whilst Cambridge A (9th) finished ahead of Cambridge B (10th). The top 16 was completed by Dundee A, York B, Surrey A, Heriot-Watt A, Dundee B and Durham A.
The knock-out phase of the tournament gave the top four teams byes and saw no real surprises, although it did set up the first of three A v B matches. York A's tactic of 1-3-1-3-1 paid off as they set up an intruiging clash with Imperial B, winners over Surrey. Both Cambridge teams fell in Round 2, A to ULU and B to Aberdeen. Both Edinburgh sides had fairly routine wins over Durham and Dundee B respectively. The quarter final line-up was completed by Loughborough A who beat Dundee A and Imperial A who beat Heriot-Watt A. With three of the eight teams left from the London area, the future for SEAL looks bright.
The quarter finals saw Edinburgh B overcome a spirited Aberdeen side. ULU came close to pulling off an upset against Edinburgh A, but some very fired up shooting saw the hosts narrowly through. Both York and Loughborough fell to Imperial's two teams, particularly fine performances coming from Imperial B's anchorman. In the two semi-finals a growing crowd watched from the balcony as Imperial B matched Edinburgh A after two out of three passes. With all three Edinburgh A archers getting their games together at the crucial moment, however, the Imperial B challenge ended. In the second semi-final Edinburgh B beat Imperial A with really good shooting from the whole team.
The bronze medal match was opened by the Imperial March and very close game, but Imperial B were just unable to hold off their A team by only three points. The final, a local affair, proved to be a round too far and allowed the A team to eke out a steadily increasing lead, until the match was eventually over with an arrow to spare 244-229.
This event had a different look and feel to any other competition at this level and the claim that it was the most exciting event of the year was fully justified - certainly that was the feeling amongst the 70 strong crowd that watched the final matches and given that Ian McGibbon was interviewed briefly on BBC Radio Scotland, this implies that others thought so too. The trophy, medals and even the podium made out of bosses all pointed to the amount of hard work has gone into this project, from Tim Mundon's conception that such a competition could even be viable, through to Andrew Phillips' running of the shoot on the day. Most of the ACME suspects were here too and weere brilliantly supported by a large "field party" whose duties included dismantling the hall as the competition continued. Thanks also to the commentary team Paul Rennie and Dave Spinner and to all the archers who made the journey and those who stayed to ceilidh.
Quarter Finals
Semi Finals
Third/Fourth place play-off
Final
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