It is with great sadness that I have to inform you all that our Vice President of Martlets Guild of Archery Coaching and a great personal friend of mine, Dave Egalton, passed away on 31st August 2023, after a very long debilitating illness that had caused him to be inactively housebound for quite some time, so limiting his coaching work. Despite this he continued to mentor trainee Session Coaches and fellow longbow archers from his club as well as jointly mentoring one of our County Coach successes with telephone conversations and visitations from these archers and coaches.
Dave and I talked regularly on the phone about coaching and archery matters and putting the world to rights and I visited him only 4 days before he died, talking about his articles for the Archer Antiquaries Newsletter he was in the middle of writing, so his death has come as a complete shock to me.
Dave started archery whilst at school in 1961 and in 1975 he qualified as an Archery Instructor, followed by becoming a County Coach in 1982. He coached archers of all levels, including GMB and International. As an archer he shot for the County of London Team on numerous occasions and represented London Telecom for many years in their archery team. Indeed I first met and befriended him at a British Telecoms and Civil Service Championship he shot at and organised in the 70’s at which I was an invited guest archer and we have been “mates” ever since.
When he retired and moved down to Eastbourne with his late wife Francis and their Old English Sheepdog, I seized the opportunity to persuade him to join Martlets as opposed to Kent’s Invicta Coaching Group and he has been a stalwart of our Guild since then, giving talks, coaching sessions, mentoring, being CCO and Secretary as well as helping me run and coach the Sussex County Squads and Level 1 Coach courses. Dave was also one of the so-called “Gang of 3” who with Geoff Marshall and me, resurrected the Martlets Guild after a disastrous period of mismanagement and has always taken an interest in our affairs, even after leaving the Committee for health reasons.
We will miss you Dave; your coaching articles, your knowledge, your reasoning and your presence as well as all those evening phone calls just as my dinner was being put on the table!!
Rest in Peace mate – may all your celestial arrows hit Gold! Archery’s loss will be forever felt by Sussex County and Martlets Coaching Guild.
Philip van Buren, President of SCAA and Martlets Guild of Archery Coaching.
Dave’s funeral will be held on the 26th of September, at the Eastbourne Crematorium.