WYRE Forest Company of Archers played host to competitors from across the West Midlands and beyond on Sunday at their annual tournament at Stourport Sports Centre.

The club’s Portsmouth tournament is in its 24th year and involves shooting 60 arrows from a distance of 20 yards.

Despite having two full sessions, the event had to be cancelled at the last minute in 2012 due to snow damage to the leisure centre roof.

However, this year the club received a record number of entries, with 100 archers, 21 of those juniors, taking part.

“It was great to have such a high level of interest in the shoot this year, in particular we were pleased to see so many junior and novice archers taking part,” said tournaments officer Karen McKay.

Awards were presented to competitors shooting the recurve, compound, longbow and barebow disciplines.

In recurve, the men’s trophy was won by Jason Relf of Malvern Archers in his first indoor season shooting as a senior with a score of 569.

For the ladies it was a close match between Linda Haines of Evesham and Sue Davis of Redditch, with the former winning the trophy with a final score of 558.

In compound, 12 points separated the top three male competitors, with Bill Bell of Wyre Forest fought off Droitwich’s Chris Price to take first place with 584.

It was a similar story in the ladies section which was won by Sheila Harris of Redhill with 561.

Shooting longbow, Henry Evans of Saints and Sinners won with an impressive 504 points.

In the junior categories it was a good day for Evesham with Alfie Wilkes (compound) and Emily Fletcher (recurve) winning their disciplines.

Kyle Downs of Wolf Archers won the recurve boy trophy.

The hosts were pleased to be announced as winners of the team trophy with a score of 2,237, closely followed by Evesham Archery Club with 2,212 and Redhill Archers with 2,182.

Presentations were made by John Caldwell, chairman of The Civic Group where the club shoots during the indoor season.

Anyone wishing to learn more about the sport, the club will be running a drop-in have-a-go archery stall during the Italia in Piazza Street Market event on Saturday, April 6 at Stourport’s Civic Centre.