UK Student Archery Association

BUTC 101 - it's disc o'clock [15/Oct/22]

TL;DR: the BUTC 2022 entry form is now live [update 19th Oct]. Entry deadline is Sun 30th Oct and cost is £42/team. BUTC 2023 needs a host club. Deadline to bid is also Sun 30th Oct.

It has been ages since the last time a BUTC actually happened - March 2019 - so it's time for a refresher. What exactly is this BUTC?

BUTC stands for British University Team Championships. It is a single day, team event open to all university clubs in the UK. Clubs can enter team(s) of 3 recurves (or barebows!) - you don't need to confirm who is in the team until the day itself. Some B teams are allowed to compete, enough to make up the numbers up to 32.

There is a ranking round followed by a H2H. In the morning, teams shoot a Bray I, i.e. 30 arrows at a 40cm face. The combined team scores are then ranked from 1st to 32nd. After lunch, there are 5 rounds of seeded head to head matches, reducing those 32 teams to 1 winner. KO matches use Beiter hit-miss 60mm yellow plastic discs. In 4 timed ends, 3 archers shoot 2 arrows each.

Did I mention the noise? Oh yeah, there's noise! The hit-miss discs often make a loud bang when hit, but BUTC allows - in fact encourages - vocal support during the hit-miss phase of proceedings. There is also usually music and commentary. By the time the final rolls around, 6 archers are often being watched by over 100 noisy spectators.

In 2019, Reading were the hosts as Warwick beat Loughborough 17-13 in the final. Since then, the 2020 and 2021 events were lost to Covid. BUTC 2022 had a last minute, enforced change of hosts and ended up being postponed until November. This means in this academic year there will be two BUTCs. A myriad of thanks to Loughborough for stepping into the hosting breach for 2022. As a nod to the fact this competition should have taken place last academic year, there is a slight change to the eligibility requirements for this event only - those who graduated in summer 2022 WILL be allowed to shoot for their respective clubs.

Looking ahead, BUTC 2023 needs a host club, with the weekends of 11th/12th and 25th/26th March 2023 the most likely. Do you have space for 16 bosses? Are you keen to minimise travel and get a B team space? Contact UKSAA and let's see what we can come up with.