THE weekend of August 13-14, 1949, was a busy one for sport, north of the border.
The football season began, Celtic beating Rangers 3-2 in the League Cup.
Loch Long Sailing Club celebrated the success of its regatta. At the Nairn Games. 20,000 people saw the well-known heavyweight athlete George Clark beat his own ground record in the heavy hammer event.
A tennis player was injured as he crashed into the boundary wire netting during the men’s doubles final in the East Lothian Lawn Tennis Tournament at North Berwick. At the 18-hole final of the Eden Golf Tournament at St Andrews, the unwillingness of the crowd to obey the instructions of the referee and the stewards caused problems.
Out at East Kilbride, meanwhile, there was a clay-pigeon shoot. Here, officials John Wiseman and William Strang operate the trap that catapulted the pigeon into the air.
The sport had had a long tradition by then, says the Scottish Clay Target Association. Feather-filled glass balls had been introduced in the 1860s, together with a throwing mechanism that worked like an animal trap, opening up shooting to people who couldn’t afford the cost of hunting and shooting weekends. The launch of clay targets towards the end of the century opened the market further still.
Clay target shooting is now one of Scotland’s fastest-growing sports, the SCTA adds.
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