Final day - English Open Sporting Round-Up

The final day of the English Open English Sporting 2022 at High Lodge lived up to all expectations. With glorious sunshine to start the morning for the early shooters, spirits were high and shooters were excited to make their way around the last day of the course.

In one of the first squads out, Mark Webster registered a good score of 110ex120 and later on Richard Bunning matched this before Sam Usher came in with a 111ex120 but still the top six places were unaffected until Richard Faulds MBE came in with a 113ex120 to join the list on 113 needing a shoot-off. 

A shoot-off was called at 4pm between Cheryl Hall, John Lee, Paul Batchelor, Michael Jones & Richard Faulds MBE all on 113ex120 to secure the final place in the Superfinal alongside George Digweed MBE on 116ex120 and Phil Gray on 115ex120. After a tense shoot-off Cheryl Hall dropped out of the running but secured Ladies Overall High Gun and 4th in AAA with her fantastic score from day one of the championship.

There were three stands then shot in the Super Final with the High Lodge team incorporating the first layout of the Sportrap part of the ground where Stand 3 of the main course was located for the previous days, setting all with new targets. This comprised 25 targets with 4 pairs on stand one of the platform, 4 pairs on stand two plus a single with full use of the gun and then 4 pairs on stand three.

After the first round of 25, Phil Gray, George Digweed, Paul Batchelor & Michael Jones pulled ahead of John Lee and Richard Faulds leaving them to shoot off for 2nd & 3rd in AAA which ended with John in 2nd place and Richard in 3rd. The other four went into a further shoot off which saw Michael Jones drop out of the running but secure 1st in AAA.

Phil, George & Paul continued their battle into a sudden death situation from which Paul Batchelor emerged as the new CPSA English Open English Sporting Champion for 2022. Phil Gray then secured Overall Runner Up with George Digweed overall third.

We also had a number of shoot-offs to determine various class and category places with the end results being:

Lady High Gun was Cheryl Hall 

Lady Junior High Gun was Annalise Evans

Veteran High Gun was Phillip Thorrold

Junior High Gun was Jacob O'Loughlin

Colt High Gun was John Porter

Lady Colt High Gun was Emily Chumbley

Disabled Standing High Gun was Mark Delf

Disabled Sitting was Adrian Last

Parent and Child was Dorian & Annalise Evans

Side by Side trophy was Francis Alexander

AAA Class High Gun was Michael Jones

AA Class High Gun was Michael Booth

A Class High Gun was Jacob O'Loughlin

B Class High Gun was Andrew Vine

C Class High Gun was Seth Peters

Fantastic shooting by all and a worthy finale to a cracking week of shooting!

2022 saw a estimated prize pot of approximately £30,000 split between the winners. Thanks goes to our generous sponsors who helped make this year's English Open English Sporting possible. Rizzini (distributed in the UK by ASI) are providing the High Gun of Veterans, Ladies, Juniors, and Colts with a BR110 Sporter. Eley Cartridges have kindly provided a number of cartridges and Swatcom are giving their new Active8 headsets for each category winners. Musto are also making sure winners are kitted out with some clothing vouchers. All Sponsors have given these prizes in addition to their prize fund contribution. We are also grateful for Teague Precision Chokes for supporting our daily raffle all week.

Well done to all who shot the championship over the week, it was a tough but exciting event.

A special thanks goes to High Lodge and all their amazing staff. Rain or shine all the team were on hand to make sure the championship ran seamlessly throughout the week. They put on a fantastic shoot as we have come to expect from the Bidwell/Coppen Team which proved an experience for all who joined us.

For the overall score breakdown, please click here, for class and category scores click here and for other scores click here.