TOXOPHILITES FOREGATHER

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 71, Issue 35, 21 November 1950, Page 2

TOXOPHILITES FOREGATHER

BEWARE “TIMBER” \ FIRST VENTURE IN ASHBURTON Toxophilites will gather and will exercise their art in Ashburton on Saturday next, and if you hear in the Domain on the nearest football ground to Walnut Avenue the cry of “timber” don’t look up, for fear you meet the same fate as did Harold at Senlac (1066). In plainer words an Archery Club has been formed in Ashburton, and the official opening is to take place in the Domain on Saturday next. The Mayor, Mr E. C. Bathurst, has consented to do the honours, but whether on this occasion he will draw the long bow is not yet decided. Archery flourishes in England, on the Continent of Europe and in the U.S.A., while in Australia there are hundreds of clubs. The pastime apparently began in New Zealand, at Dunedin, in 1939, but was in abeyance during the war. There are now clubs in many New Zealand centres, including Auckland, Gisborne, Wellington, Christchurch and Timaru. And now, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of Mr McKirdy, Ashburton has a club, at present of 12 members, who, with visitors from the Christchurch Club, will introduce the sport to Ashburton. There is a New Zealand Archery Association, with a monthly magazine “The Archer,” and from this periodical even the amateur may learn [something of the fascination of the cult of the bow. He reads, for instance, that while a golfer calls “fore” an archer cries “timber” to warn the unwary that a missile will anon be in flight; he gathers that bows are made of yew, hickory, lemonwooid or steel, and that the paraphernalia of the sport no longer need be imported, as it is “Made in New Zealand,” and lastly that there is a target, but no bull’s eye, for it is called “the gold.” “1 ,shot an arrow into the air: It fell to earth I know not where” Avas written by an amateur. Archery is an ancient art —Robin Hood and his merry men were experts, and who has not heard of the longbow men at Crecy? To-day it is a pastime, and one that not only links past and present, but provides its devotees with a healthful and fascinating avocation.

Once again New Zealand links up with English tradition, and maybe a future world toxophilite may hail from Ashburton, putting the town, not on the map, for it is clearly there already, but firmly on the “gold” standard.