Remembrance of Discs Past [10/Jun/21]
Just before all roads lead to Lilleshall, a quick note about BUTC.
Covid permitting, BUTC 2021 has been pushed back until late Oct/early Nov, i.e. once clubs are back for the 2021/22 season in the autumn, but before the regional leagues kick off. As the event should have taken place in the 2020/21 season, organisers have taken the view that those who graduated in summer 2021 will be allowed to shoot. You must be an ArcheryGB member for 2021/22 season though, because insurance does not travel through time.
The Editor however has travelled through time, in order to revisit some favourite/interesting matches from BUTCs of the (recent!) past.
2016 first round (R32) Loughborough vs East Anglia
Arthur Coveney, Adam Wozencroft & Louis Richardson vs Nickil Shah, Devon Harper & James Hart
After the Bray I, these two teams were separated by 25 places (4th vs 29th) and 171 points. Half way through the KO match, Loughborough led 6-3 and could have been forgiven for having one eye on who they might face in the last 16. Suddenly the formbook was inverted and as East Anglia surged, Loughborough stumbled. The second half of the match went 6-3 the other way. A shoot off - and BUTC history - beckoned. Only once in 17 tournaments has a top 6 seeded club lost in the first round. The shoot off was incredibly tight and required a judges call to settle it, but Loughborough squeezed through 2-1.
East Anglia have never won a BUTC KO match in the 8 BUTCs they have been to. There have been other close shaves, notably the following year, when they lost another Round of 32 shoot off, despite qualifying in 14th. Loughborough's 2016 vintage went on to reach the QFs. Three years later, in 2019, the pair came together in the first round again. This time, Loughborough were 27 places (3rd vs 30th) and 199 points after the Bray I. With Coveney and Wozencroft in the team again, Loughborough won again, but at 9-6 it was close.
2017 quarter final Swansea vs York
David Jenner, Gavin Tsang & Harry Lakhiani vs Kevin Claxton, David Shaw & Malachy Evans
Both these clubs were returning to BUTC after prolonged absences, 5 years for York who qualified 13th and 8 for Swansea who were one place above them. In the previous round both sides caused seeding upsets. York squeezed past Nottingham Trent 9-8, whilst Swansea upended Edinburgh A 14-12. This meant 13th vs 12th (rather than 4th v 5th) was the QF, presenting both sides with a golden opportunity to make the semis.
The match started slowly, but both sides rediscovered their touch in tandem. There was only 1 disc in it with the last end to go. The last end was a spectacular one. Both sides hit 5 from 6 and Swansea took the win 13-12. This was York's best result of the hit-miss era, whilst Swansea became the first SWWU semi-finalists for a decade. In fact, no SWWU teams at all had shot in 2015 or 2016 and the Swans were flying solo in this year.
Honourable defeats to Warwick and Edinburgh B meant Swansea ended the event 4th - but this remains their best ever finish at a nataional event. Perhaps the most far-reaching impact of this result wasn't clear until the following BUTCs, however, which saw a surge in SWWU turnout, surely inspired by Swansea's run. Five teams (in 2018) and then six (in 2019) smashed SWWU BUTC attendance records.
2018 second round (R16) London vs Nottingham A
Dominic Collis, Julie Saigusa & Michael Woollard vs Lizzie Elmer, Phil Middleton & Luke Frearson
Having qualified in 21st position, London had already overcome the odds in round 1. The SEAL club beat Nottingham Trent (qual 12th), the match requiring not one, but two shoot offs. Nottingham A were next and the fifth seeds ought to have had too much in the tank, but they were never able to build any momentum and the regulation match finished 7-7. Having dragged themselves into a shoot-off, London took their chance in spectacular fashion, smashing their way in to the last 8, with a maximum 3 hits to 0.
London were eventually outclassed in that quarter-final, but by that time they had matched the record for the lowest seeded clubs to get to the QFs (21st - Imperial B 2010, Birmingham A 2011, London 2018) and also their own club's best BUTC performance. London have reached the quarter finals five times (2003, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018), but never got any further.
2019 first round (R32) Reading B vs Oxford
Ellie Chaston, Imogen Sullivan-Bell & Emma Brand vs Ciaran Lunt, Ellen Jones & Augustinas Silale
On home soil, Reading B struggled against the 6th seeded Dark Blues and the match finished 10-3. Oxford would go on to the quarters in 2019, their best result since silver medals in 2016.
Perhaps of greater note than the match outcome is that Reading B were an all female team, something vanishingly rare at BUTC and the only one in 2019. Across 17 tournaments there have been 524 teams of 3. Of those, 245 have been all male, 218 have had two men, 56 have had two women and 5 have been all female - just under 1% of the total. Out of those, only Napier (2015) and Edinburgh (2017) have ever fielded all female A teams.
Reading hosted BUTC in 2019 and five of their six archers were women, the highest ever number from a single institution in BUTC. The record had been 4, jointly held by Imperial (2005), Edinburgh (2010 & 2011) and Salford (2017).
The list of all the all female BUTC teams ever:
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