The unbridled joys of shinty

The thing I like about shinty is its complete amateur status. Joiners, banks clerks, electricians, students wield a caman. And when they’re whacked with the stick they tend not to lie down for their equity cards. And that’s just the girls’ and women’s teams. Diego Costa would probably hold his own at Pàirc nan Laoch in Portree, though even he would be well advised to wear one of these splendid protective helmets that are now rightly compulsory for young players.

It’s a great social event. My fondest memories of shinty have nothing to do with goals and scores or who won and lost, but just watching the illustrious bard Sorley Maclean standing on the touchline, as his beloved Skye defeated the mighty warriors of Ballachulish or Strathglass.

There are some great Sorley shinty stories to be told. When he was headmaster at Plockton a group of boys were brought into his office, having broken a window with a shinty ball. The culprit was finally identified and while he waited sheepishly for the inevitable sanction Sorley looked out through the shattered glass and asked him, “Where did you hit the ball from?” The lad pointed some 70 yards away. “What a great shot” said Sorley. Such excellent shinty prowess deserved praise, not punishment.

Amateur sports like shinty remain unspoilt by money. There is no such thing (as far as I know!) as a transfer market or a transfer window with agents and players driving through villages in their darkened Porsches, though an occasional tractor has been seen weaving up the back roads from Glenurquhart to Beauly on late summer evenings. A wee dram is not a fee.

Shinty is also blessed in not having an elite professional strand remote from the people. The connection between club and community is still intensely local, and long may it continue in the increasingly monetized world we live in. And there is a thriving youth and women’s player base, which is terrific to see, for there lies the future.

It’s also been wonderful to see shinty return to the Western Isles, where it was absent for generations. It’s now, once again, played in Uist, and Lewis make long boat journeys across the Minch to play their games: more power to their camain!

Some of the glens have been depopulated of course. Economic pressures have traditionally forced young people towards the urban centres, which makes it doubly impressive when you see the enormous efforts these young exiles then make to travel back every week to their native village to play iomain.

The game has been graced by many individual greats - I well remember Grant Michael of the wonderful Kinlochshiel team of the 1970s, the Pele of his time. Then there is the legendary Ronald Ross of Kingussie who has offered to make a comeback from retirement to help his team out in the forthcoming crucial play-off against Kilmallie. I think the whole shinty world would look forward to seeing the Ronaldo of the Glens (or is it the Messi of the Mountains?) gracing the field once again.

A great friend of mine, Bill Ramsay of Kyle passed away last year at the grand age of 84. Bill was a Kingussie man born and bred and proud of it, and would often speak to me of his childhood in the village. The secondary school was in Kingussie but if you lived in Newtonmore and passed the "qualifying" you went there. Part of the prize for passing the exam was that you were given a bike for getting to school. Badenoch was green and organic long ago.

“I well remember the bonny Newtonmore lassies cycling in the three miles through rain, hail or snow. As they cycled past us in a blizzard they’d shout over their shoulders: "'Sun’s shining in Newtonmore!’”

Of course it was, for it always is.