Do You Compete?

[robie_225]

Can i ask why we are disscussing the whole shooting in green/white thing when we now have club colours. The rule that refers to the dress code clearly states that green and / or white or club colours is acceptale. If you wear green / white to a shoot, not your clubs colours, it is your choice and no-one is making you wear these colours. But if your club has not got club colours then yes you will have to wear green/white so just grin and bear it. Green is also the esiest colour to find (generally in camping shops)so no-one can complain they dont have anything green to wear.

[Thunk]

Originally Posted by robie_225

Can i ask why we are disscussing the whole shooting in green/white thing when we now have club colours. The rule that refers to the dress code clearly states that green and / or white or club colours is acceptale. If you wear green / white to a shoot, not your clubs colours, it is your choice and no-one is making you wear these colours. But if your club has not got club colours then yes you will have to wear green/white so just grin and bear it. Green is also the esiest colour to find (generally in camping shops)so no-one can complain they dont have anything green to wear.

Robie, most clubs haven't adopted club colours yet - some have no intention of doing so. You obviously haven't suffered from 'wrong green' syndrome. The exact shade of green isn't laid down and so it is up to the individual judge to decide just how wide the range of acceptable green is on any particular day. They will also dispute what 'white' is 'white'. White that is 'white' in cricket, for example, isn't necessarily 'white' in archery. Those of us who have experienced the wrong side of this have a different take on it. I suppose I should relate my own experience, although I have never done so before...

I used to be a good archer. I started at my boarding school in Scotland where our geography master was in either the Scottish team or the GB team - can't remember which, it was so long ago. I competed whenever I could, and won a fair few tournaments throughout my teens and early twenties. I wasn't quite a Grant Womack, but had the ambition to be so and plans to achieve it.

It was 1972. I went to a competition in Hampshire, wearing what I assumed was acceptable dress. It was quite a big tournament - I remember there were a couple of dozen bosses so the entry must have been about a hundred or so. It’s true that my shirt had been bought the previous season and had seen the inside of a washing machine many times, but it was green, intact and neatly pressed and hadn’t been a problem thus far. We were shooting sighters when a stentorian voice bellowed from the far distance. “You on target eleven – stand away from the line’! As he got closer, he continued shouting, ‘If you can’t be bothered to turn up in the correct colour green then I can’t be bothered to let you shoot!”

Public humiliation has never been my forte. The entire field had stopped all activity and was silent except for this judge who kept up his full-volume commentary on the shortcomings of my dress. It seemed that everybody’s eyes were on me, and it was more than I could do to pack up my gear so I left it all where it was on the ground, walked to my car and drove away. I didn’t touch a bow again until two years ago, when we were watching Alison Williamson winning her bronze at the Olympics and my wife said, “I’d like to try that”. Eva and I hadn’t even met when last I shot, and at the time of my humiliation Alison herself must have been less than a year old. So thirty-two years later I started again as a complete beginner, and age and multiple sclerosis conspire to make it unlikely I shall ever approach my former proficiency.

I've never told anybody this before, and I'm not even sure why I'm doing so now. You might think I'm an extreme case but I could show you others who have given up the sport in similar circumstances. I now enjoy shooting again even though I'm rubbish, but I can tell you that never again will I enter a competition where my acceptance on the shooting line is at the whim of someone else's subjective colour judgement. I hope your enjoyment of the sport is never marred by such circumstances.

[Kae]

And that pretty much sums up my dislike for the way the GNAS is run. Things haven't improved much since then, and judges still have the occasional power trip over the colour of green. I've had one archer in my care almost leave the sport (would of done If I hadn't of been there to talk them round) because of a similar but not quite as public experience as Thunks.

Without sounding a complete wuss, my feelings go out to you Thunk, even though it was so long ago.

Kae.

[Thunk]

Thank you Kae. You're right - it was long ago. But sometimes it still feels like yesterday.

[Medoc]

Green or White or club coloured top its pretty simple, and with the amount of threads on this issue with countless links to websites with correct clothing available why are we still going on about it????

Its pointless worrying about the shade, colour and style of what others are wearing, just look after your own kit and enjoy shooting.

[robie_225]

Thunk,
I can see where you are comming from but those days are a little bit far gone now. I know several judges who all say that there is no wrong shade of green and thats the feeling of the majority now. bringing in the club colours seemed to alter peoples thinking on this matter of 'the right shade of green'
i think Medoc has the right idea, dont worry about the 'right colour shade' and just enjoy your shooting!

[not dead yet]

compete all over. nearly always in white, sometimes in green at local shoots. i even bought a green suit. the bee's knees .even judges dont wear suits......although thunk put it across well. i personally think green and white should stay........then again my parents shot for wales, my bro, myself, my uncle my cousin and his wife. plus other family members

[not dead yet]

thunk and your 1972 episode. i packed in in may of 1973, junior champ with a bad case of target panic. as your a Dr and i presume you were well aquainted with standards in 1972 why didn't you or anyone that was with you give it to the judge involved for broadcasting and thoroughly embarasing you at the time. trust me he wouldnt have done it to me. i mean all it takes is a little word in the archers ear, maybe to purchase new greens. i am terribly sorry for your embarassing time and wish you well with your archery for the future.
pete

[Mistake]

I tend to shoot at a fair few competitions and I don't mind the green and white rule... i used to question it when i first joined, but now its something that i can put up with, with my only issue being the fact that GNAS dosn't ever tell us exactly where to get the 'right' green from.

I tend to shoot in whites, and have more white 3/4 lengths and shorts than is healthy, and i've shot in the Wales team colours (my personal favorite.)

I think that GNAS should consider the possibility of having club colours on the bottom half as well, but seeing as my club can't even decide if we want to have club colours it dosn't really effect me untill i leave / join a differant club


Edit:

Thunk- Surely what he did at that competition was not only highly rude... but highly innapropiate.

Your describtion of this judges mannerisms reminds me of a certain judge in Wales (no names mentioned.. but i know that Pete knows him)... I was at a FITA star competition... my first ever, and this judge chewed out one girl for not having the right shade green trousers, despite it obviously being her first ever competition, and she was about 13 years old, and then had ago at me for me for having my intials on my fletchings... I was almost kicked off the line after he said "If the fletching comes off then we won't know whose arrow it is" and i responded "Well... if its missing a fletching which i'd most likly find on the way to the target, its safe to assume its mine."

Not as bad as your experiance, but i still think that some times judges think they are the most important people there, when really its us archers that turn up that make a shoot what it is

[andrew.paterson]

Originally Posted by Medoc

Its pointless worrying about the shade, colour and style of what others are wearing, just look after your own kit and enjoy shooting.

This comment is fine until you get called up for judges interpretation of what he thinks is the right shade of green. I can remember the day I was told I was lucky to be shooting because the M&S dark green trousers I was wearing were not dark enough.

I just wish that GNAS either scrap the dark green rule, or bring out a colour card to clarify this rule.