The Chairman of the NRA, Robin Pizer, congratulates the College shooting captain Max Barber (far left) on the school’s successes. (Picture by Bruce Parker, 1159887)

IT WAS always going to be a tall order for Max Barber to equal last year’s winning performance in the schools’ rifle shooting competitions at Bisley.

After all, he’d taken the biggest individual prize, the cadet Grand Aggregate.

And yet, after four days of shooting this week at 300, 500 and 600 yards, Barber, 18, came within a whisker of taking the championship again this year – only beaten into second place by a cadet from Wellington College by a matter of two bullseyes.

This up and coming young star of Guernsey rifle-shooting had also won a tie-shoot for the 600 yards aggregate, but the result was nullified after an unaccountable error by the National Rifle Association’s results team.

In the main team event for schools, the Ashburton Shield, Elizabeth College came sixth, beating Victoria College, Jersey, by twelve points to retain the inter-insular Haines Shield for the fifth successive year.

The College team also won the Cottesloe Vase and eight NRA gold medals – a competition concurrent with the Ashburton Shield for schools with a senior pupil strength not exceeding 450 .