History Of The Club
The first known archery club in Swansea was "Swansea Archery Club", formed by three initial members - John Roach, Ken Gower and Garritt Watson - after a demonstration by the CCPR (now the Sport & Recreation Alliance) at the University playing fields in 1955. The club lasted three years but dues to a combination of a lack of indoor facilities and the original members graduating shooting ceased for a short time.
Then in 1959 an article appeared in the evening post encouraging those interested in the sport to contact Brian Maguire. John, Ken and Garritt did so along with a number of others and in March 1959 "Gower Bowmen" was officially formed.
The following year, to avoid confusion with "Gwent Bowmen" the club officially became "The Bowmen of Gower". After several years of jumping around between different less than ideal venues, which included a boggy marsh in Llansamlet and a skittle alley in the Smelters Arms of Morriston (which lead to an interesting challenge darts match between the club and the local darts team, they with darts, us with bows), eventually an agreement was reached for us of the King George V playing field, where the club is still situated today.
During the 1960s the club grew and began to become known for it's arching prowess. Nick Hansford represented the club and his country at the Tokyo Paraplegic Olympics in 1964, winning a silver medal. In 1964 Television Wales and West presented the club with a trophy to be competed for by archers from the region, the first tournament for that trophy was won by Doug Davies of Graig in front of a reported 1,000 spectators! Doug would go on to win the trophy for each of the next 6 years and indeed for 9 of the next 10 in total. During the 1970s the club regularly supplied members to the international team with Viv Rees and Marley John in particular finding success in that time.
The 1980s saw the club have another Paralympian in the shape of Ernie Arnold, who in total attended three Olympiad (Stoke Mandeville/New York 1984, Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992). Ernie won a Bronze in the Double advanced metric round tetraplegic competition in 1984. Sadly the last City of Swansea Tournament took place in 1955, due to charges made for rental of the field. The 1955 tournament was switched to Llandarcy for a single year but the logistics of moving all the equipment the ten miles up the road and back made it an impossibly long-term solution. Club membership continued to fall and in 2001 hit a low point where there were not even enough regular archers to be able to rent an indoor hall for the winter season.
2002 saw a new relationship with the Swansea Institute of Higher Learning (now University of Wales Trinity St. David) lead to free usage of the gym hall at the Townhill campus, despite being small in size it enables the club to once again have a reliable practice space all year round and as a result several beginner's courses (including one for Institute staff) are organised to bring new (and returning) members to the club. Club members again begin entering competitions around the region, with some success individually, showing the rest of the region that the club is indeed back. The club agrees to rent an evening per week at Pentrehafod Spots Centre during the winter months, being twice the size of the hall at Townhill this means that the expanded membership can now all shoot together again. Townhill remains available for Saturday morning sessions as well. 2014 sees the club tighten it's relationship with Swansea University as a number of students become associate members of Bowmen of Gower, their youthful enthusiasm and dedication helps bring a new dynamic to club nights. Today the club has over 40 members (including founding member and current President John Roach), can call on two shooting sessions a week indoors during the winter months and three regular outdoor sessions during the summer, around a dozen members regularly attend shooting in and around the region on a regular basis with some making even longer journeys into foreign lands (well, Avon and Gloucestershire) on occasions.