I went to 2 shoots last weekend, neither registered. There was a mixture of scorers at both but many were teenagers. When I hand my card in I tend to stand next to the scorer and watch the scoring. On the Sunday shoot there was a lad who hadn't a clue. He appeared to be watching but scored "miss/hit" twice in a row when the shooter had clearly broken both targets. So I told him to correct it. On the next card he then started scoring misses as hits. I watched him score the next few cards and he made more mistakes. I don't have a problem telling a scorer when he deducts a target incorrectly but I find it difficult to say "Oy, he missed that" about a shooter I don't know, at a ground I don't know and when I'm going around on my own. I actually think the boy's eyesight probably wasn't good enough to score because he was watching but not seeing! What I decided to do was double check my score after each pair so i knew at least my score was correct. What I should have done is told the chap running the shoot. But when I did see him he was stressed about there being a 20 shooter wait at the stand and I doubt he really wanted to know.
On the Monday shoot I watched another young scorer make mistakes: they really didn't seem to be able to tell if the clay had broken. In fact they were sat in the wrong place to see if the 2nd clay had broken at all - it's break point was near a tree on the left and when I stood behind the scorer I couldn't see the clay as it was being shot! I told the boy to move his chair but he refused to. As I walked away I told a chap who seemed to be involved with the ground and I hope he did something. It didn't seem to bother any of the other shooters though and there were queues at both stands.
If I had turned to the people in the queue and said "this scorer hasn't a clue, watch him like a hawk" would that have been bullying? It might have been the right thing to do but I couldn't bring myself to do it. If someone had done that to me at their age I probably would have died on the spot.
There is one local registered shoot I won't go to anymore as they use clueless teenage scorers
I shot a selection shoot in Devon a few weekends ago and on some stands our squad had to score ourselves because we were being taken around by a scorer but they were using manual traps and he had to man those.
It's just as well there isn't much money up for grabs in this sport. Unfortunately there isn't enough money to go around to employ more competent scorers. I imagine it isn't always easy to find someone to sit there all day, in all weathers for a pittance. Even so they do need to be trained and maybe their eyesight checked!
It will be another reason I'll miss Wylye because Ian's scorers are some of the best
