1. www.nowjakarta.co.id august 2014 5352 august 2014 www.nowjakarta.co.id
British entrepreneur, sports enthusiast and ex–security man, James Corden-Lloyd is an interesting
character. Son of a famous military commander who was shot down during the IRA troubles in 1978,
James was brought up in the beautiful countryside of Somerset playing polo and tennis from the
age of 7. In his adult life, he has moved between enterprises in South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand and
Pakistan and his native England before coming to Indonesia 5 years ago, where he introduced K9
security to many of the malls and hotels here and still runs various CSR tennis coaching programs for
underprivileged kids in his capacity as PTR (Professional Tennis Registry) and Cardio Tennis Instructor.
T e x t A L I S O N P A C E
Meet James Corden-Lloyd,
the Sports Entrepreneur
Sports &
Recreation
H
is biggest passion though is for
race horse training, having been
part of the same team who
won The Derby in 1999 with a
horse called Generous.“I miss
the whole atmosphere of the racing stables,
waking up at 5am to get all the horses
and jockeys out. Working with horses is
challenging, you have to be very intuitive and
sensitive to their feelings, they are like people
– some are lazy, some are athletic, they have
different body shapes and so on,”he also
worked with the UK Champion trainer the
late Sir Henry Cecil on his stable sponsorship
with Saab.
So, at the age of 44, this Jack-of-All-Trades
has already been an adept sports coach and
player, shrewd business man, co-founder
of the Kuala Lumpur Show Jumping Grand
Prix as well as his new role as the GM of
new Business and Sports Club called the
Admiralty Club in Fatmawati. So what could
possibly be next for this self-proclaimed
“sports entrepreneur”?
Well, introducing clay pigeon shooting to
Indonesia obviously! NOW! Jakarta recently
caught up with James to find out more.
Why did you choose to develop clay
pigeon shooting and what are your
plans?
Tennis is already established here so I can’t
really do much more to develop that side,
however,clay pigeon shooting is new and a
sport that I think Indonesians will enjoy and
do well at. What I really wanted to do was
introduce an Olympic sport to Indonesia
and I have an opportunity to select and train
candidates at clay pigeon shooting for the
World Championships and the Olympics.
I plan to open up a compak sporting range
either at Senayan shooting range or Tanjung
Lesung where I already have an established
tennis academy. For Compak shooting the
land requirement is only a rectangle of 40
metres by 25 meters, so it’s very applicable
to an urban and rural resort. For other clay
pigeon shooting you need around 200
acres so the plan was to introduce Compak
Sporting first. We also intend to host a
Compak Sporting World Championship
in Indonesia in 2015. Surprisingly, there
is already a core of good shooters here –
Perbakin, the national shooting association,
has around 11,000 members.
Clay pigeon shooting also lends itself to the
corporate entertainment market – unlike
golf where you have to be quite good to
compete, in shooting you don’t. Of course
there will be a significant lifestyle aspect
with Michelin-Star standard dining and
exclusive bars. I’ve also formed an alliance
with Quintessentially, a lifestyle concierge
service, so this means if people have special
requests, for example perhaps they want to
go real game shooting in the UK or fishing
on the River Spey, we can organize it!
For those of us who have never
experienced it, what is the objective
of clay pigeon shooting and how is it
played?
Clay targets are thrown by clay pigeon trap
machines, of which there must be a minimum
of 6. Every target thrown must pass over at
least one side of the 40 x 25 meter rectangle.
Targets are released on a random time delay
( 0-3 seconds). Different clays imitate
the movement of different animals –
rabbit clays hop, boars charge at a low
trajectory, or they can imitate a duck
coming in to land. Generally, it’s just
for fun and interest on a regular range
but obviously for an international
competition there’s a scoring system.
What’s the attraction of clay
pigeon shooting?
It’s very exciting, a little bit
dangerous, unique, fun and it makes
you very self-confident. It’s also
hugely addictive! I just have a gut
feeling that it will be very acceptable
to Indonesians because of the
lifestyle aspects and the fact that it’s
not a physical sport, so shooters don’t
get too hot.
What is your market for this sport?
The pricing will be between IDR 500,000 –
IDR 1,000,000 per half hour (depending on
how good a shot you are), so I suppose it
is an elitist sport. However, I haven’t even
opened yet and I have 280 people waiting
to be members and 1000 people who
want to do it, ranging from the very elite of
Indonesia to shooting enthusiasts already
registered with Perbakin.
When do you envisage all of this
happening?
I’m importing a demo kit soon (two Beretta
shotguns, clay machine, clays and special
(low noise) cartridges from Greece). People
can come along and we’ll run a clinic with
a high level coach and see who’s talented.
We could open at Senayan but actually I’m
looking for sites at the moment, best would
be a Hotel with the space and capacity to
host big events, as this sports suits urban
and rural locations. If it’s popular, we
can think about expanding to Bali,
Surabaya and so on.
Clay pigeon shooting in Indonesia
is just the latest of many projects
that James has been involved in.
Having been brought up in a very
high profile family, studied Politics,
English and International Affairs and
had a colourful career in Security
taking him to many parts of the
world, enabling him to start several
sporting enterprises, James really
is the epitome of an entrepreneur.
“ Am looking forward to getting
started at the Admiralty Club as we
have many plans for creating an
up scale sports and business club,
hope my experiences in sports and
business can add value to the Club and
members.
You can visit James at
The Admiralty Club operated by the
Mercantile Athletic Club in Fatmawati
Jl. RS. Fatmawati No.1, Pondok Labu,
Jakarta Selatan 12450
Pin BB : 270700E4
E: Infopigeonbarrel@yahoo.com