Crowthorne Archers celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021 and since 1971 it has been a club where archers of all ages and abilities have met to enjoy target archery in a relaxed social setting.
Club based archery, under Archery GB governance, starts with a Beginners Course of 5 x 2-hour sessions run by the club’s coaches. Completion of the course means that new members are certified to shoot safely in a club environment as Junior or Senior AGB members.
Archery is a family outdoor sport where everyone can compete in their age group or simply enjoy shooting a few arrows and having a chat with like-minded members.
When you join the club you are guaranteed to have fun – how far you go is up to you. The club’s coaches are there to make sure you enjoy yourself and make progress to whatever level matches your ambitions.
During the year the club organises both fun events timed to coincide with Halloween or the anniversary of Agincourt and internal club competitions to build up handicap and ranking scores. Archery GB has a number of schemes such as 252 which allows new archers to measure their progress and receive recognition in the form of badges.
The St Sebastian’s Playing Field is the Crowthorne Archers main ‘home’ and provides an excellent combination of a beautiful, tree-surrounded archery range and essential indoor facilities. In 2022 the Trust paid for converted container storage units with lighting and power for use by the cricket, football and archery clubs so that we now have a large target store and a fully fitted archery workshop. This allows coaches and club members to work on their own or club equipment with specialist tools for set-up.
Crowthorne Archers shoots outdoors on Sundays all year round and on Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the summer (April to September)
Crowthorne Archers shares the combined site with three other sports clubs, cricket, football and tennis so we all get the benefits of well-maintained facilities and grounds for membership costs which remain affordable.
Crowthorne Archers supports the Sports England ‘Have a Go’ initiative each year in May and we open up the club for a full day’s free sampling by residents in the Crowthorne and Wokingham areas.
Archery is a friendly sport and we set up fun competitions during the summer with our neighbours at Burleigh (Wokingham) and Old Basing (Basingstoke).
For those who want to take the sport more seriously there are indoor and outdoor competitions all year round for AGB members, limited only by the distance you’re prepared to travel – there are plenty within Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. The club hosts the Berkshire county indoor competition each November at our winter indoor venue at Sandhurst Sports Centre.
Archery is becoming seen as a good sport to take up for Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme candidates in the Physical section. The club’s coaches are able to support the taking up of a new sport as assessors with direct input of achievements into the DoE portal.
