ARCHERY: Bowmen taking urgent aim at new headquarters

4:00pm Friday 8th March 2013 in Latest Sport News By Dan Barnes

Devizes Bowmen’s Phil Cushion, Kevin Plenty (secretary) and scorer Alex Escott at practice at the town’s sports club on Saturday Devizes Bowmen’s Phil Cushion, Kevin Plenty (secretary) and scorer Alex Escott at practice at the town’s sports club on Saturday

DEVIZES Bowmen have issued a plea to the local community for help finding a new home to preserve their 50-year history.

The archery club have been shooting at Devizes Sports Club for around 18 months since moving from Green Lane, making use of the town cricket club’s pitch in the winter and rugby club’s training pitch in spring and summer.

But with the rugby club due to begin work to install new floodlights on their pitch this summer, the archers, who have more than 50 members, are on the hunt for a new space to fire their arrows.

“I only became our chairman last October and at the first meeting I had with the rest of the sports club, I found out that the rugby club couldn’t let us use their pitch anymore,” said Bowmen chairman Nick Sherman.

“We’re going to have to look for a new home and we’re asking if anyone has a spare two acres that we can buy or rent.

“We shoot on Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings and maybe this can be a good thing.

“We’ve got a lot of kids, disabled members and even some England internationals, who really need to practice as often as they can.”

Rugby club chairman Rod Brown said: “We wanted to allow them to keep on shooting on our pitch but we’re finding that we need to use it more and more.

“We lost so many games because of the bad winter weather and the building work is starting this summer too.”

  • Anyone interested in helping Devizes Bowmen with their new home can contact chairman Sherman on 07702 237339

Comments(5)

Di the Compound says...
7:23pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Sorry to read, this my club had a similar experience 13 odd years ago and we have never been able to move forward since. Its a great opportunity for all the Council and Sporting organisation (funded by tax payers) who keep talking about the Olympic legacy (to justify their existance?) to step up and help this club to find a new ground and hopefully prosper and achieve the goal I keep reading about 'Sport for All' I live in hope for these fellow Archers.

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Mazzy7 says...
1:17pm Sun 10 Mar 13

How about Rowde School, they have good parking and hire out the field. Its not far from Devizes. 01380 723991

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mellowgecko says...
11:57am Mon 11 Mar 13

I just wanted to clarify the position the the rugby club committee have taken with regard to sharing their rented pitches. The reality of the situation is that they have decided that the archery club cannot under any circumstances make use of the rugby pitches at any time of the day regardless of whether they are being used for rugby training or not and regardless of whether building work is underway or not (their ban commenced last summer 1 yr before any planned work). They have also reneged on a signed agreement to give the archery club 12 months notice to stop using the pitches which is why the archers are urgently looking for an alternative venue. Hope this clarifies the attitude of the rugby club committee in supporting other sports clubs.

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tecmic says...
5:01pm Mon 11 Mar 13

I'm a relatively new member of the Devizes Bowmen Archery Club and will say it's one of the most friendly groups of people I've met. Whether an international archer or a beginner, there's no segregation and help is freely available.
To learn that the club was losing it's primary practice ground was a shock, although one of the other clubs at the Devizes Sports Ground was and still is happy to share their ground with us but it doesn't solve the problem, as they are a cricket club and need their ground available from the end of March until late autumn each year.
This is not just about keeping hobbyist happy, we have a national archer and county level archers in the club who need regular practice...almost daily to maintain their skill levels. Youngsters wishing to enter the sport also lose the local amenity if the club cannot continue.

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neillockhart says...
5:51pm Mon 11 Mar 13

What a shame that the local press seem incapable of reporting a clear and accurate story! Regardless of age, gender, ability or disability Archery is a sport for everyone and for a Rugby club to arbitrarily force our club out simply as they do not want to share a field is not only un-sporting but demonstrates a lack of social responsibility. I would suggest that Dan Barnes takes a bit more time and care in researching his articles and represents the situation in a more equitable manner. However, as a club we have to accept this situation as it seems the Sports Club constitution favours the rights of the Rugby club to veto other clubs use of the land without discussion or debate, or even notice! So the quest is on to find an alternative location for our 50 year old club to shoot.... so we will need a lot of support and help from the local authorities and community to make this happen.

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