While attending my first school, a group of us became interested in joining the local archery club. We were around 10 years old at the time and not surprisingly, everyone found other interests as they grew up. But my keen interest in the sport grew and I have been doing archery ever since.

I have spent many years representing my club, county and country at all levels of the sport. I have taken part in 2 Olympic Games. The first was in 1972 in Munich, the first Olympics to include archery since 1908. I competed again in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, where the members of our men’s archery team won a bronze medal, the first medal for us since re-joining in 1972.

I had competed in Seoul at a World Championship three years before the Olympic event and to return to the same venue and take part again, shooting a different format of competition under new rules, gave me a good experience of mixing the old with the new. Since taking part in the Olympics, both as a competitor and doing committee work to try to help other competitors within my sport and other sports, I have found greater enjoyment than previously when I have watched the Olympics. I think this is to some extent because of my greater awareness of what has been involved behind the scenes.

During my time in archery, I have participated in both target and field archery and have managed to achieve an individual silver medal in the European Championships twice. The first time was in 1968 target championships when I was shooting right handed. Then I changed to left handed following an injury and took the silver at the 1995 field championships. I now compete in the compound bow division, which I am able to do again shooting right-handed.

Archery has taken up much of my time, but I have been able to combine it with studying at University and a career in computing with various engineering companies.

More recently I have become more involved in the administration side of my sport, taking jobs as treasurer for several of the clubs and organizations to which I belong. But I still really enjoy my sport and continue to take part actively and travel while competing in it.