Larry Godfrey strode across the turf at Lord's Cricket Ground, waving to his cheering fans as he went up to collect the trophy in front of the Pavilion. But this wasn't for any cricketing feat: Godfrey and the Great Britain's men's recurve team were being applauded on Monday for winning the MCC Cup, the first international archery competition to be held at Lord's, the venue for the sport in the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The triangular tournament gave Great Britain the chance to make up for the England cricket team's failure to beat India at Lord's last month. The men's team of Godfrey, who came fourth in the Olympic Games in 2004, Simon Terry, the bronze medal-winner at the 1992 Olympics, and Alan Wills, the bronze medal-winner at this year's World Championships, beat the India team 219-207 with two dozen arrows over 70 metres to win the cup, having earlier beaten China 219-200.

The women's cup was won by India, whose team included Dola Banerjee, the 20-year-old Commonwealth Games champion last year. India beat China 207-203 after both sides had won high-scoring matches against Great Britain. Alison Williamson's side had won the gold medal at the World Cup event in Dover last weekend, but they were outclassed by their opponents, losing 219-209 against China, who recorded the joint-highest score (57 out of a maximum of 60) for six arrows of the day with their final end in that match. Great Britain then lost 221-216 to India, who also made 57 in their final visit to the line.

Godfrey, 31, could be regarded as archery's version of Kevin Pietersen with his bleached hair and a tattoo of the Olympic rings on one arm. He is young enough to be a medal-contender in 2012 and said he enjoyed his first competitive action at Lord's. "It gave us all great experience, particularly of the tricky wind conditions here, and it is nice to have won the first archery trophy at Lord's," he said. "It is likely that this will be the Olympic team in Beijing next year and possibly five years after that, too."

The competitors all admitted that the lack of any flags on the targets made it difficult gauge the wind, which circled in the stadium. The wind got so strong at one point that it ripped the npower sponsor's logo off the side of one of the target faces. A few years ago, the international archery federation did not allow competitions to be held in arenas because of the wind problem, so the experience that Great Britain, China and India gained could prove valuable.

That said, Tom Williamson, the president of the Grand National Archery Society and father of Alison, who won the bronze medal at the Athens Olympics, believes that windy conditions will always favour Great Britain. "The wind should suit our archers better simply because they are used to practising in it," he said.

Alison Williamson was joined on the women's team by Naomi Folkard, the Commonwealth silver medal-winner, and the promising Charlotte Burgess, 20. Williamson will be 36 at the next Olympics and has made a habit of promising after each Games that it would be her last. "I'll never say never about 2012," she said yesterday.

Once the professionals had finished the shooting, Tom Williamson kindly gave me a lesson over a shorter distance, allowing me to tell my grandchildren in years to come that I had played at Lord's. Although I was a keen archer as a student, and shot - fairly badly - for my university, I had not picked up a bow in 12 years. "Keep your left arm bent," Alison Williamson said, showing that archery has some similarities with cricket, although in this instance it was to prevent me getting a string-burn on the arm.

Her father made sure that all spectators were a safe distance away and then allowed me to let fly. The first two arrows settled in the blue zone - scoring 11 points - but after being told to aim lower, I hit two consecutive golds for 18 more points. That seemed the right point to retire gracefully in order to protect my average at Lord's.

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