The annual Imperial Meeting, this year in its 157th iteration, kicked off on July 11th with the Hopton. Our club saw 12 members compete in part or all of the Hopton — a 33% increase, compared with last year — with 3 of them competing as novices. In what would become something of a theme for this year’s Imperial, the weather was constantly unpleasantly warm, and those of us lucky enough to be squadded under the tree at 1200x earned the envy of everyone else.
Regardless, our shooters continued undeterred. We entered an unprecedented three teams in the FW Jones, and many of our shooters produced fantastic results, with four members placing within the top 10 Tyros in the Hopton. Luca Schwarz came top Tyro in the Weekend Aggregate, Ho Lam Yiu came top Tyro in the Armourers, and our MR Vice Captain Jacob-Jude Parsons formed half of the winning top Tyro pair in the Match Rifle Pairs.
After the Hopton came the Elcho, which came to us as both a much-needed day of rest as well as an inspiring glimpse into the highest levels of Match Rifle shooting. As always, CURA members helped out with various tasks on the day, gaining a front-row seat to the action.
On First Thursday came the Humphry. With Oxford experiencing an unfortunate rifle mishap at 1000x, leading to a miss or two to count, we started off with an early lead of 11 points, which we widened to 18 points by lunchtime. However, it was at 1200x that our team truly shone, further widening the gap to claim the Humphry by a convincing 31 point margin. Congratulations to Luca, our ex-Captain, for top-scoring with an impressive 216.26v, as well as to our new caps Bruno Iwanczyk and Ji Hyun Lee, the latter achieving her half blue in her first year of shooting.
Our thanks go to our adjutants Ashley Abrahams and Richard Vary, our coaches Nick Brasier, Alex Cargill-Thompson and Claire Halleran, our plotters Jono Brooking and Adam Leech, and our many members helping out both on and off the point. Finally, we’d like to thank Oxford for such an exciting match and for such strong opposition. It’s great to see the Humphry back in Hawks again, and we look forward to next year.
Not to be outdone, a sizable contingent of those more keen on Target Rifle set their sights on the newly created Youth Imperial, with 5 members competing. Running concurrently with the MR Imperial, it certainly made the English VIII clubhouse busier than it normally would be during the Hopton. The week started off with a few members trying out new disciplines, including Gallery Rifle and Precision Snapshooting, and progressed towards the more serious business of Target Rifle shooting. With two of us winning spoons, two making the final for the Duke’s Prize, our team coming second in the Musketeers Cup and our TR Vice Captain Amy Xu winning the Meltis Cup in the regionals, it proved to be excellent practice for the upcoming TR Imperial, as well as a successful meeting for CURA in its own right.
Thursday evening was spent marking the end of the MR season with the Humphry Dinner, after which we moved swiftly (many would argue too swiftly) on to the Astor the next morning at 8 am. Despite being terrifically hung over from the previous evening, our Astor team shot uncharacteristically well, coming 10th, setting a trend of individual and team successes: CURA members appeared 33 times in individual squadded prize lists, with our Captain Ben Vary and Ho Lam winning the Tyro tankard in the Alexandra and the Prince of Wales respectively; four members qualified for St. George’s II; six members made King’s II — the highest number in recent years — with Will Bacon coming 59th in the final; Ho Lam additionally won the Peter-Hoblyn aggregate. We entered four (!) teams in the Universities Long Range match, with our B team coming third; CURA members made up half of the English team for the Universities National; and Will was selected as a reserve for the English team for the National.
But all would be for nothing, if we could not translate our successes into a strong Chancellors’ team. Fortunately, with 20 members shooting part or all of the Grand, including 5 novices, we had no shortage of talent to choose from. With our kit and rifle checks having been completed the evening before, on Second Friday a well-rested CURA team faced off against OURC. With Oxford struggling to find their feet at 300x, we claimed an early 19 point lead. While Oxford pulled together and put up a series of respectable scores at 500x, our team scored no less than three possibles at this range, widening the lead to 33 points. A forward-sloping firing point at 600x proved challenging for both teams, but thanks to some quick thinking and attention to detail from our team, we were able to cope better than our opponents to claim the Chancellors’ by a decisive 47 point margin, completing our clean sweep of the fullbore Varsity trophies. Congratulations go to Jacob who top-scored with 148.18v, easily a full-blue score.
We would like to thank Richard Vary for once again serving as adjutant this year, as well as to our members for making sure everything behind the point was ready to ensure a smooth experience for the shooters. Thank you once again to Oxford for yet another well-fought match to round off another successful year.
Serenaded by Joe’s wonderful poetry, we celebrated the successes of another fullbore season at Chancellors’ Dinner on Saturday evening. With copious amounts of wine to wash down our meal with, we all had a very memorable King’s night.