Founding Club
TVR was one of the founding clubs on the merger of all the clubs on 1 April 2018.
History
TVR is a recent name for the club and came about after the longstanding club name of Watts Blake & Bearne small-bore rifle club was no longer appropriate after the famous South Devon china clay company was taken over by Sibelco and its name was immediately changed to that of its Belgian owners. WBB had a long history of supporting its workforce in many extra curricula activities via its Sports and Social Club of which the WBB rifle club was a part. These were all closed down over time by the new Belgian owners. The River Teign Valley was close to our original location so the name Teign Valley Rifles was chosen and enabled us to create a club logo embodying the TVR initials in not too dissimilar a fashion to the famous sports cars!
WBB small-bore rifle club had an indoor 25 yard range, club room and armoury at Homers Lane, Kingsteignton and occupied the back of the WBB football club premises. The club also had the advantage of having an outdoor range at Binney’s Pit, a disused clay pit on the old road between Kingsteignton and Chudleigh Knighton, adjacent to the then current clay workings and alongside the WBB Clay Pigeon Shooting Club. Shooting took place indoors during the winter season and outdoors at both 50m and 100 yards in the summer.
The club was small but enthusiastic and very capable at good shooting and had an excellent membership who were always keen to help and encourage new members to take up and improve and excel at the sport of small-bore target shooting. WBBRC attracted members from the Great Western Railway staff club rifle club and Newton Town Rifle clubs as they fell into decline.
Two leading lights at the club were Mike Taylor, now Chairman at Pinhoe Target Shooting Club and John Abrams. Mike, an Optometrist, is well known throughout the shooting fraternity fixing up shooters with lenses as their eyesight deteriorated. John Abrams was a highly skilled dental surgeon and equally as skilled on the range. He was one of the Devon County record winning county team in the inter-county NSRA team matches for which there is a commemorative plaques to this day in the Pinhoe Club room.
The club was very keen on outdoor shooting and also dedicated supporters of both Devon County meetings and the NSRA with a healthy contingent making the annual pilgrimage to Bisley for the national meeting held on the famous Century range and this enthusiasm continues to this day. Many shooters shot both indoors and outdoors for Devon County and travelled to Cornwall and Dorset for outdoor inter-county matches.
The most famous highlight in recent history was the club’s win in the NSRA News of the World club team of six knockout competition in 2002 beating Aberdeen in the final which was held on the then new Malcolm Cooper range at the Lords Roberts Centre rigged for shooting at 25 yards. The team comprised Mike Taylor, John Abrams, Gregg Hamley, Nina Williams, Debbie Mackie, Robert Beard and Carol McKenna (now Newman).
