UT – NEWS – Extra Competition 2026

NCSC – 3^rd & 4^th OCTOBER 2026 – entry £120

The UT directors are pleased to announce that there will be an extra competition added to the UT 2026 schedule. This event will join the English open 2026 as a Selection Shoot 2027.

National Clay Shooting Centre will be hosting this competition on the 3rd and 4th October 2026. We are grateful for their commitment and support towards this event.

This will help ease the pressure on having early competitions in 2027. The selection for 2027 FITASC events will be staying as a “3 from 4” system.

This is also a great opportunity to shoot more Universal Trench competition!

More details to follow in the next few days…

UT – UK Champs -Fauxdegla 16 & 17 May 2026

Report and Rankings after Beverley and East Yorkshire 18th & 19th April

UNIVERSAL TRENCH 2026 AND BEYOND.

Dear All

Please note, with immediate effect, Ed Barker will take on the role of the second BICTSF UT Director to work with Paul Ashley. In order to continue to work with FITASC, and thus allow BICTSF to operate the FITASC licence in the UK, they will follow all the required rules as laid down by FITASC Paris.

Ed says “I look forward to working with Paul and assisting with Universal Trench as a Director. We are excited to work through some of the challenging financial issues, create great events, grow participation and have some enjoyable times with the UT community. I look forward to seeing you at Beverley Shooting Ground on 19^th April at the first Selection Shoot”.

In addition, a sub-committee, selected by Paul and Ed, will be set up to provide practical assistance as well as ideas.

UT is not as popular as it used to be and has suffered in recent times due to the increased interest in OT. In 2025 we had a total of 321 entrants across four shoots – an average of 80 entrants per competition. Once ground fees and prize money had been deducted it left insufficient funds to cover the cost of sending teams abroad and we ended the year nearly £1000 in the red – similar to the last couple of years. Thus, the difficult decision was taken not to fund the teams going to this year’s European Championships which should return us to a positive end of year balance and put us in a good position for 2027 onwards.

Best Regards

Nick Woodward

Chairman

BICTSF

Very Important Announcement re UT European Championships 2026

As you maybe aware UT has not been in a stable place financially for sometime now.
For the last two years and going into this year the discipline is in a deficit. As at 31/12/24 the loss was £1095.00 and as at 31/12/25 the loss increased to £1404.00. This is not sustainable.

With this in mind and the European Championships being in Valencia, Spain in July this year. I have decided the best thing to do is this.

ALL team members will have to pay their own entry fee direct to FITASC, the same as was done with the World Championships in February and as individual entrants do now.

The team entry fees will still be paid by the BICTSF.

It’s been a bit of a difficult time for UT as we know with the Worlds being early too.
It’s a decision that has not been taken lightly by myself but feel it is the best way forward to make UT in 2027 more financially stable.

I have to emphasise that if we don’t do this the discipline may well cease to survive in the very near future

UT Selection Shoots 2026

18-19th April 2026 – Beverley 

16-17th May 2026 – Fauxdegla UK Championship 

6-7th June 2026 –  Brook Bank BGP

29-30th August 2026 – Nuthampstead English Open 

Online Entries for these will open soon.

GBR TEAM NEWS! AUSTRALIA 2026

After a lot of hard work we are pleased to announce the team representing UT for GBR is as follows:

Ladies

• Katie Cowell

• Kath Bright

• Jackie Lewis.   New Cap

Mens

• Mark Shaw.    New Cap

• George Seaborne.  New Cap

• Emyr Davies

Seniors

• David Lloyd

• Mark Wright

• Graham Carter.   New Cap

Masters

• Michael Barker.  New Cap

• Alan Haynes.    New Cap

• John Slatter. 

Congratulations to you all, really appreciate you commitment and patience in waiting for the announcement.

Wish you all the best of luck 

Also with a special mention to the Six New Caps in the team. Congratulations to you all and enjoy the experience.

Unfortunately we have no junior or veteran teams representing us. 

UT Rankings September 2025

UT – URGENT SELECTION SHOOT UPDATE!

The decision has been made as follows following various views from shooters:

The Nutty Selection Shoot in September this year WILL count towards the European Championship in 2026.

Along with the first three selection shoots next year. 

So the best three from four to count for the European Championship in September 2026.

No change for the Worlds in Australia 2026 as per the BICTSF website 

Sorry for the inconvenience this may or has caused. Please pass onto anyone who does not use social media. Regards Paul 

UT – World Championship 2026

On reflection, a few points need to be clarified concerning the World Championships in Melbourne 2026.

Firstly, we definitely want to be able to send various category teams to Melbourne, assuming that a fully credible team can be made up in each category according to the selection criteria previously announced.  We should not make any concessions – either shooters qualify, or they do not. There is a possibility therefore that we will not have teams in all six categories.

UT shoot entries are not what they used to be, so funds are tight.  For a few years now we have only been able to fund the individual team members’ entry fee and the team entry fee (€100 per category). Broadly speaking, the European Championships are usually funded from the proceeds of the first two selection shoots of the year, the World Championships from the third and fourth selection shoots of the year. 2026 will of course be different due to reverse timings of the Euros and Worlds.

It is unlikely at the moment that there will be enough money in the kitty to pay individual team member entry fees up front.  We hope to have enough to cover the team entry fees – €600.

We will have a clearer picture after the last selection shoot at the end of September. Until then we want to put potential team members on notice that they may have to fund, or part fund, their own entry fee for the Worlds.  We could look at the funds available after the first two selection shoots to see if we can cover the entry costs of the World team members.

As there will be four selection shoots before the 2026 European Championships in September, there should be enough money to fund the entry fees in full for that shoot. At that time again, if necessary, the money situation will be looked at to see if there are any surplus monies which could be paid out to those who attended the World Championships.

We appreciate the situation is far from satisfactory but please bear with us, we must work within the financial constraints of the discipline.