Barry Dagger (b1937)
BARRY Edward Dagger shot to fame quite literally, winning world championship and Olympic medals for his marksmanship with the rifle.
He was selected for three Olympics, competing in the 1976 games at Montreal and winning his bronze eight years later in Los Angeles.
In between he had been selected for the Moscow Olympics of 1980, on which the British shooting team and other sporting denominations missed out, in a Government-influenced boycott.
It still rankles with Barry, who said: “Maggie Thatcher still owes me £13,000. That was what it cost me to train for the 1980 Olympics and her Government half-promised to look after those who supported them by not going to the games – I’m still waiting.”
Born in Grantham Barry still lives in the town and is Huntingtower Road School’s other famous pupil.
He took up rifle shooting when an apprentice with Ruston and Hornsby, and when they closed he moved to Kontak, becoming an inspector.
He became county champion but only set his sights on higher things as a result of a family holiday in Scotland.
It was there he entered the Scottish National Open Championships, and came within a point of winning it.
It spurred him on and he became English and British champion and put himself into Olympic selection contention for 1976.
He practised in his living room. He has a small trophy on his mantelpiece at home, and when turned around it has a white disc in the middle, with a black dot in the centre. This was his bullseye.
In 1976 the ace rifleman shot an unbeatable record score at Bisley, home of British rifle shooting, scoring a maximum 600 against USSR and Belgium in international competition.
He didn’t make the medals at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but went on to world championship team gold in Seoul in 1978 and Venezuela in 1982, as well as Commonwealth Games team gold in Brisbane in 1982.
He also won silver and two bronze individual world championship medals in Seoul.
Barry’s selection for the 1980 Moscow Olympics was unfulfilled but he was back on the Olympic stage in Los Angeles four years later, and this time it was Olympic glory.
At the age of 47 he was the oldest member of the British Oympic team, and at under 5ft tall probably the shortest, which makes the achievements of this world class Grantham sportsman all the greater.
He became National Junior Coach in 1989.
Grand chap Barry..