I was curious. I’d run past them before, always on a Monday morning. As I hugged the perimeter of my local playing fields, I caught sight of their frolicsome little group at the bottom of the hill. It was barely 7.30am. A dozen middle-aged men and women were silhouetted against a weak-willed sun, lugging strange equipment across the damp grass.

Lolloping past them on my first revolution of the park, I saw that they’d settled into a row of director’s chairs and were strapping their wrists and fitting fingerless gloves. Surely archery’s a summer sport, I thought, but they seemed oblivious to the chill wind.

When I panted by on my second revolution (there’s rarely a third), I saw they’d marked out the range with red flags and were sighting their bows against the targets.