Southside Archery began from our coach, Leigh’s desire to take up archery and finding this both difficult and expensive.
Most clubs had huge waiting lists and all were very expensive to join, there seemed to be no alternative to an affiliated club so no real way around the huge costs involved so it seemed like something he might never get to do.
Kirsty happened to stumble across some sessions being advertised that were being led by Glasgow Life who were keen to support more accessible archery sessions. He was then lucky enough to get the chance to complete his instructors course and help provide sessions for the Wellbeing Program at Govanhill Baths. Later Leigh was supported through his level 1 coaching qualification by Glasgow Life and they still continue to support our coach education for our current coaches and instructors.
The Wellbeing Program was well received, but had one flaw – it was only a 6 week program, there were no options for people to continue after their 6 weeks although many that attended expressed a desire to do so. From there the idea of forming a proper club was born so along with some dedicated participants from the Wellbeing Program, Leigh and Kirsty went about setting up a formal club with support from Glasgow Life. This core group of Wellbeing Program participants, along with Kirsty on the admin side became our initial committee and many of those original members still serve on our committee today.
We became an official constituted group in 2017 and the hunt was on for a venue. Glasgow Life were able to support us with start up funding for equipment and some hall rent and set us up in The Geoff Shaw Community Centre in Toryglen where we remained until covid closed the hall down. At times we also had access to an outdoor venue in Langside and the club continued to grow.
When Covid hit we were forced to be exclusively outdoors and The Geoff Shaw Community Centre never reopened as it was. When restrictions were relaxing we were lucky enough to get into Cornerstone Hall in Toryglen where we remained until early 2025. Unfortunately a change in staffing at the hall meant that a new policy was put in place where most participants in any session had to have a Toryglen postcode (before this sessions only had to be available to people who lived in Toryglen which they always were) and due to the fact that people travel from all over Glasgow and beyond to come to our sessions this was never going to be possible for us and we were effectively thrown out taking the only affordable access to archery away from Toryglen where we had always been based and away from the southside.
However although it was upsetting being forced out of the area we had always belonged to, we had been able to secure time at Easterhouse Sports Centre just shortly before the changes at Cornerstone as this was a much bigger venue and would allow us to have 2 venues in different areas of the city. Thankfully this meant we could just fully move the club and base ourselves in Easterhouse completely which has been a great move for us.
The bigger venue allows us not only to shoot bigger distances but to increase the number of members we can have at our sessions. The centre has a real community ethos and works hard to support both the local community and the groups that use the facility and this fits in very well with the club’s own values.
We hope to be shooting at Easterhouse for a very long time but we do regularly get asked if we are planning a return to the southside. The honest answer is not at the moment, sessions are so well attended and our beginners courses are full or close to full every time they run so for now our focus is on fundraising to increase the amount of equipment we have available for members to use. However this does not mean that we have ruled out picking up an additional venue when we are in a financial position and have enough instructors to do so.
Everyone is welcome at Southside Archery and we care deeply about creating an environment which is inclusive and where everyone feels comfortable. Archery is a very accessible sport and as such suits people of all abilities, please just let us know if there is anything we can put in place to allow you to comfortably participate in our sessions. Our policies do not allow for any discrimination, bullying or harassment and we will enforce these if needed to make sure that no one is ever treated poorly at any of our sessions.
