AS a parent of three boys who all play for Kilmory Dunadd, I feel that the decision made by the Camanachd Association to ban certain clubs from the national shinty finals was wrong on so many levels (“Obscure rule threatens turmoil in schools shinty”, The Herald, June 19 & Letters, June 21).
Our children are devastated by the decision and don’t understand why they are being stopped at playing at national level from the game they love.
The decision was made without prior consultation with the club and it is unacceptable for decisions of this nature to be made mid-season. Our club had already paid for the privilege of playing at national level along with membership to the association.
Our primary seven boys have played together since primary one, when the club was founded, and they have had their fair share of losses on the pitch. After years of hard work and effort, they seem to be getting punished for what they have achieved.
It is unfair for the children who put huge amount of effort in turning up for training regularly every week; the parents who transport them long distances to games; the sponsors who have invested in our training kit; and the coaches who give up their time to train the players of the future players.
This comes with little help from the association and depends on the club raising its own funds.
As for being accused of cherry picking our players, the ethos of our club has always been and always will be that, if children turn up for training, they will get a game and it only takes one look at the club role to see that we have the same players in primary seven as in primary one. There has been a cap of 150 introduced for the total school roll per club but large schools have no cap, which doesn’t make any sense.
In this day and age when we are trying to encourage children into sport it is perhaps time the association looked at its rules to make them more inclusive to the more southern teams, where shinty is still a fragile game.
Lesley Boyle,
Kilmichael Glassary,
Argyll.
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