They say that you spend 229,961 hours of your life asleep, I think Phil and I spend that amount of time travelling to shoots on the M1. Its overcast and pissing it down with 20mph wind as we hit the ramp to head to Purley Chase for one of the MFTA’s summer leagues. Saturday hadn’t gone well from either of us, I started badly for some reason and then forgot to dial for a 40yd target, this let Phil in and with 6 targets to go it was going to be hard to stop him winning. He beat me by 2 targets and I wasn’t surprised, I’d shot terrible. That left the score between us 3-2 to me, I’d need to pull my socks up at Purley if I was going to beat Phil in his current form.
I love shooting a Purley, I really like the grounds and the courses they put out, they always seem well balanced and there’s always something to settle you in. You can’t underestimate the value of this and it’s something the Purley lads always seem to get right and that’s why we keep coming back.
The course was on the left-hand side which is my favourite side so I was bang up for it and need a score of 35 or more to make sure I could take the lead in the visitor’s cup, Phil was about to get pumped into the middle of next week after my dire performance on Saturday.
First 3 went and that settled me in perfectly, all I needed to do was keep focussed on the game and take each target one at a time. As we went over the edge of the woods into an area I hadn’t shoot before the wind was starting to pick up. I gave a long one a tad too much and it landed spot on at 9 O’clock on the plate, this was going to be a tricky one as we headed closer and closer to the open field at the edge of the woods. I lost another to the wind, one going low plus a couple of standers and a 15mm reducer for a total of 35, it should have been another 36 PB but the last lane did me. I’d shot loads better than Saturday and was pretty pleased with the result and even more chuffed when Phil put a 31 in, smashed him to take the lead in the visitor’s cup. There’s still few to go so I’m keeping everything crossed.
