The air pistol was now of equal importance in the competitions. Guns Review proprietor, Mr. Tee, gave his support in money and in the printing of paper targets.

NARPA Championships at RAF Cosford.

Wheelchair shooters on the Aldersley Rifle Range.

In 1974 representatives of N.A.R.P.A. at the Bournemouth Conference of the Central Council for Physical Recreation, (C.C.P.R.) had the satisfaction of seeing their efforts on behalf of disabled members of airgun shooting accepted by Sir Ludwig Guttman, the founder of the Stoke Mandeville Centre, into the area of wheelchair sports. It would be fair to say that initially he was very much against shooting of any sort. It was perhaps the demonstration of the Sport of Air Gun shooting, and an exhibition of shooting equipment, by Wolverhampton enthusiasts in 1975, at Stoke Mandeville, that proved that here was a new sport for disabled people, giving them an entry into a sport of the able bodied. Twenty years later, advanced electronic sighting equipment was used in the new National Indoor Centre at Aldersley Stadium, Wolverhampton, that opened the way to visually impaired and blind sports people to take their place on the firing point.

Another very important step in the progress of N.A.R.P.A. was the Sports Council’s decision to pay the salary of a National Development Officer for Air Gun shooting in Britain. He was based first in Northampton, and then in the town centre of Bridgnorth, Shropshire.

When a Cosford national championships had to be cancelled owing to a clash of dates at the R.A.F. base, another venue had to be found in the Wolverhampton area. Hilton Equestrian Centre, just north of Wolverhampton, was ideal, apart from the floor which was of loose material to accommodate the horse riders using the centre.

Another important venture that involved N.A.R.P.A., was persuading the management of Bilston Swimming Baths in the West Midlands, to provide the only permanent municipal air rifle range in the country, having ten lanes with electronic target changers plus three Bell Target places. This was placed in the area underneath the pool and was opened by the Mayor in 1974 with a match between Town Councillors and Council Officers.

But it shouldered one last responsibility of the National shooting organisations when it volunteered to produce air rifle instructors for ‘Action Sport’.

Air rifle coaches course.

Left to right:

Derek Anderson (Director, Action Sport), Tony Raines, Josh Johnson, Geoff Pond; and Frank Spittle, front left.

Many regretted the passing of the N.A.R.P.A. organisation, that had succeeded by the way of the voluntary effort and work of its membership and unpaid staff. A part of shooting history it may be, but some of the older and, in the main, Birmingham, Black Country, or central England shooting fraternity, bell and six yard participants, still look back with justified pride on how much they achieved, with so little. Most of all, perhaps, was the enjoyment they had doing it.

When the National Smallbore Rifle Association assumed the now defunct National Air Rifle and Pistol responsibilities, it did at least inherit the benefit of financial assistance from the Sports Council for a Development Officer for airgun shooting, and a well presented training scheme manual, for developing airgun shooting and clubs at basic and grass root level. These were handed to Mr Ron Russell, secretary of the N.S.R.A. on the demise of the National Air Rifle and Pistol Association.

It also had the site at Aldersley, Wolverhampton, for the provision of a National Centre, that had been continuously striven for since 1970, the birth centre of air rifle sport in the United Kingdom.