The I-Couldn't-Have-Done-That-If-I'd-Tried No-Longer-Virtual Award
Back at our 1999 AGM Bosco kindly (?) donated a Thing to the club to be used as an annual award. The Thing was one of those big wooden puzzles in which you have to work out how to get a metal ring from one end of a string to the other via several other wooden rings - rings, please note, that are smaller in circumference than the metal ring is. Someone had given this Thing to him as a present and it is a measure of Bosco's character that he thought it would be a good idea to pass the Thing on to someone else, thereby leaving them open to the same tedium, the same frustration and the same general dismay that he felt on being landed with such a desperately dull eyesore. His only stipulation was that he himself was never, ever to be awarded it.
It was decided, given the apparent unlikelihood of anyone ever managing to solve this lousy puzzle, that it should be awarded to someone who had managed something similarly unlikely in the course of the previous year's shooting. Thus the annual I-Couldn't-Have-Done-That-If-I'd-Tried Award was born.
The Green Hollow Bowmen
"I-Couldn't-Have-Done-That-If-I'd-Tried No-Longer-Virtual Award" Trophy
Some explanation is probably required as to why the trophy is described as a "No-Longer-Virtual" award. The reason is that for a period between 2000 and 2005 it disappeared; learned members of the club theorised that it had disappeared into an interdimensional rift caused by some misguided soul actually trying to coax that @*!!$% metal ring through those equally @*!!$% wooden ones. However, in early 2005 the trophy turned up during a long-overdue clear-out of the club's storage hut. Fede, who had just been "virtually" awarded it a couple of months earlier was terribly pleased to be able to take it home to place on his mantlepiece after all.
(Well, terribly somethinged.)
Past and present winners and their achievements are listed below.
The I-Couldn't-Have-Done-That-If-I'd-Tried
No-Longer-Virtual Award Roll of Honour
| 1999 | Johnny Galliver for repeatedly hitting the exact same spot on the target stand leg during the BLBS Scottish Albion. Great consistency - nil points. |
| 2000 | Jennifer McCulloch for her spooky shot into the stand leg just after she'd named her new bow "Henrik" in honour of her football hero Henrik Larsson of Glasgow Celtic. The arrow broke spectacularly, just like poor Henke's leg had just done in a recent game. |
| 2001 | Lizzy McBrien for a day of shooting which was crappy beyond even normal longbow standards. Highlights included shooting the club mallet dead and putting an arrow through the tiny hole in the target guy. Hitting gold would have been easier. |
| 2002 | Laura McBrien for her last arrow of the BLBS Scottish June Clout Meeting. It hit the clout (yaay!) which promptly fell over on top of it, squashing and shattering the poor arrow (aaaaaw…). She still has the remains. |
| 2003 | Willie McGill for managing to skewer the creban (well, have you a better suggestion for the singular of crebain?) up the bahookie during the Lord of the Rings Shoot. The little tiny creban, stuck up a pole as it was, was one of the hardest targets to hit. Unfortunately Willie was trying to hit the great big enormous Black Rider target at the time. Willie had the cheek to ask for the points for the bird too… |
| 2004 | (If you're squeamish, DO NOT READ ON!) Fede Valls who, when pulling his clout arrow from the ground, found the end dripping with gore. It looks like he managed - from 180 yards away - to hit some poor little mole innocently tunnelling away underground instead of the thirteen foot radius clout scoring area. Oops. |
| 2005 | Bill Wiseman for managing some horizontal wand shooting at the BLBS Autumn Clout at Culzean. He managed to put his arrow into the pole of the measuring string from 180 yards away. Note that said pole is always carefully placed in a spot where it is least likely to be skewered... |
| 2006 | John Morris for his final tally of 1 hit, 6 score, 1 clout at the Andrew MacKay in April. He was very proud. We were very amused. |
| 2007 | Jay Valls Morgan for a Blairquhan round shot in May, in which out of 32 hits, she scored 7 golds, 5 of which were from ends each counting "Nine, miss, miss". This frustratingly inconsistent score has since been called "A Jay". |
2005 winner: Bill Wiseman, getting in some practice for the 2006 Silver Arrow Wand Meeting
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