Shinty is a
team gameA team sport includes any sport which involves players working together towards a shared objective. A team sport is an activity in which a group of individuals, on the same team, work together to accomplish an ultimate goal which is usually to win. This can be done in a number of ways such as...
played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the
Scottish HighlandsThe Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
, and amongst Highland migrants to the big cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread, being once competitively played on a widespread basis in England and other areas in the world where Scottish Highlanders migrated.
While comparisons are often made with
field hockeyField Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, the two games have several important differences. In shinty, a player is allowed to play the ball in the air and is allowed to use both sides of the stick. The stick may also be used to block and to tackle, although a player may not come down on an opponent's stick, a practice called hacking. A player may tackle using the body as long as this is shoulder-to-shoulder as in association football.
The game was derived from the same root as the
IrishIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
game of
hurlingHurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...
but has developed different rules and features. These rules are governed by the
Camanachd AssociationThe Camanachd Association is the World governing body of the Scottish sport of shinty. The body is based in Inverness, Highland, and is in charge of the rules of the game...
.
Shinty is also one of the forebears of
ice hockeyIce hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
: in 1800, Scottish immigrants to
Nova ScotiaNova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
played a game on ice at
WindsorWindsor is a town located in Hants County, Mainland Nova Scotia at the junction of the Avon and St. Croix Rivers. It is the largest community in western Hants County with a 2001 population of 3,779 and was at one time the shire town of the county. The region encompassing present day Windsor was...
. In
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, informal hockey games are still called
shinnyShinny is an informal type of hockey played on ice or the street. There are no formal rules or specific positions, and generally, there are no goaltenders. The goal areas at each end may be marked by nets, or simply by objects, such as blocks of snow, stones, etc...
.
Another sport with common ancestry is
bandyBandy is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a football field. Each team has 11 players,...
. While bandy today is played on ice, bandy was the term for shinty in
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
.
Playing Area
The objective of the game is to play a small ball into a goal, or "hail", erected at the ends of a 140 to 170-yard-long pitch. The game is traditionally played on grass, although as of 2009 the sport may be played on artificial turf.
Ball
The ball is a hard solid sphere slightly smaller than a tennis ball, consisting of a cork core covered by two pieces of
leatherLeather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
stitched together. The seam is raised. It is very similar to a hurling
sliotarA sliotar or sliothar is a hard solid sphere slightly larger than a tennis ball, consisting of a cork core covered by two pieces of leather stitched together. Sometimes called a "puck" or "hurling ball", it resembles an American baseball with more pronounced stitching...
in that it resembles an American
baseballA baseball is a ball used primarily in the sport of the same name, baseball. The ball features a rubber or cork center, wrapped in yarn and covered in leather. It is in circumference . The yarn or string used to wrap the baseball can be up to one mile in length...
with more pronounced stitching. The ball is usually white, but there is no statutory colour, black being a common colour for Kyles Athletic and fluorescent balls now being available.
Plastic balls or soft balls are often used in youth competition such as the variant, "First Shinty".
Stick
The ball is played using the
caman, a stick of about 3 ft long. Unlike the Irish
camán, it has no blade. The
caman is traditionally made of wood, traditionally ash but now more commonly
hickoryTrees in the genus Carya are commonly known as hickory, derived from the Powhatan language of Virginia. The genus includes 17–19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and big nuts...
, and must not have any plate or metal attached to it. The
caman would be made from any piece of wood with a hook in it, hence
caman, from the Scottish Gaelic,
cam meaning bent or crooked. It can also be called a stick or club.
Plastic camans are common place in the youth variant "First Shinty".
Rules of Play
A player may play the ball in the air and is allowed to use both sides of the stick. The stick may also be used to block and to tackle, although a player may not come down on an opponent's stick, this is defined as hacking. A player may tackle using the body as long as this is shoulder-to-shoulder as in Association Football (soccer).
A player may only stop the ball with the stick, the chest, two feet together or one foot planted on the ground. Only the goalkeeper may use his hands and then only with an open palm. He may not catch it. Playing the ball with the head constitutes a foul whether intentional or not as it is considered dangerous play. Other examples of dangerous play which will be penalised are players, while grounded, playing the ball and reckless swinging of the caman in the air which might endanger another player.
Fouls result in a free-hit, which is indirect unless the foul is committed in the penalty area, commonly referred to as "The D". This results in a penalty hit from 20 yards.
A ball played by a team over the opposing bye line results in a goal hit from the edge of the D, a ball played by a team over their own results in a corner. A ball hit over the sideline results in a shy. A shinty shy involves the taker tossing the ball above his head and hitting the ball with the shaft of the caman. The ball must be directly overhead when struck to be legal.
Team Size
A team consists of 12 players, including one goalkeeper. A match is played over two halves of 45 minutes. With the exception of the keeper, no player is allowed to play the ball with his hands. There are also variants with smaller sides, with some adjustments in the field size and duration of play.
Substitutions
As with sports such as Soccer, shinty originally did not have substitutes. These were introduced in the 1960s, progressively expanding to allow a maximum of three substitutions per game. As of 2011, a rule change allowed for rolling substitutions to be made at senior level. It was already a common place practice at youth level.
Origins
| Pronunciation |
|
| Scots Gaelic: |
cam |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkʰaum |
| Scots Gaelic: |
camag |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkʰamak |
| Scots Gaelic: |
caman |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkʰaman |
| Scots Gaelic: |
camanachd |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkʰamanəxk |
| Scots Gaelic: |
cluich-bhall |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkʰlˠ̪ɯçvalˠ̪ |
| Scots Gaelic: |
cnapag |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkɾãʰpak |
| Scots Gaelic: |
Comann na Camanachd |
Pronunciation:
|ˈkʰomən̪ˠ nə ˈkʰamanəxk |
| Scots Gaelic: |
iomain |
Pronunciation:
|ˈjumɛɲ |
| Scots Gaelic: |
sìnteag |
Pronunciation:
|ˈʃiːɲtʲak |
| Scots Gaelic: |
Spòrs |
Pronunciation:
|ˈs̪pɔːrˠs̪ |
Shinty is older than the recorded history of Scotland. It is thought to predate Christianity, having come to Scotland with the
GaelsThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
from Ireland.
HurlingHurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...
, a similar game to Shinty, is derived from the historic game common to both peoples which has been a distinct Irish pastime for at least 2,000 years. Shinty/Hurling appears prominently in the legend of
CúchulainnCú Chulainn or Cúchulainn , and sometimes known in English as Cuhullin , is an Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore...
, the
Celtic mythologyCeltic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
hero. A similar game was played on the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
known as
cammagCammag is a team sport originating on the Isle of Man. It is closely related to the Scottish game of shinty and is similar to the Irish hurling...
, a name cognate with camanachd. The old form of hurling played in the northern half of Ireland, called "Commons", resembled shinty more closely than the standardised form of hurling of today. Like shinty it was commonly known as camánacht and was traditionally played in winter.
The origins of the name shinty are uncertain. There is a theory that the name was derived from the cries used in the game;
shin ye,
shin you and
shin t'ye, other dialect names were
shinnins,
shinnack and
shinnup, or as
Hugh Dan MacLennanDr Hugh Dan MacLennan is a Scottish broadcaster, author and sporting academic with specific interest in the sport of shinty. A fluent Gaelic speaker from Lochaber, he attended the University of Glasgow before going on to teach Gaelic in Inverness and then going to work with BBC Radio nan Gaidheal...
proposes from the Scottish Gaelic
sìnteag. However there was never one all encompassing name for the game, as it held different names from glen to glen, including cluich-bhall (
play-ball in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
) and in the
Scottish LowlandsThe Scottish Lowlands is a name given to the Southern half of Scotland.The area is called a' Ghalldachd in Scottish Gaelic, and the Lawlands ....
, where it was formerly referred to as
Hailes,
common/
cammon (
caman),
cammock (from Scottish Gaelic
camag),
knottyThe game of knotty is a Scottish team sport. It is a variation of the game of shinty as played in the fishing communities of Lybster, Caithness. It used to be played widely in the town, as was shinty in the rest of Caithness, but it ceased to be played around the end of the 19th Century, until 1993...
and various other names, as well as the terms still used to refer to it in modern Gaelic,
camanachd or
iomain.
The game was traditionally played through the winter months, with New Year's Day being the day when whole villages would gather together to play games featuring teams of up to several hundred a side, players often using any piece of wood with a hook as a caman. In
UistUist or The Uists are the central group of islands in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.North Uist and South Uist are linked by causeways running via Benbecula and Grimsay, and the entire group is sometimes known as the Uists....
, stalks of
seaweedSeaweed is a loose, colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthic marine algae. The term includes some members of the red, brown and green algae...
were put to use due to a lack of trees. Modern camans are made from several laminates of ash or
hickoryTrees in the genus Carya are commonly known as hickory, derived from the Powhatan language of Virginia. The genus includes 17–19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and big nuts...
which are glued and cut into shape, although one-piece camans were still commonplace until the early 1980s. The ball was traditionally a round piece of wood or bone, sometimes called a
cnapag, but soon developed into the worsted leather balls used today.
Organisation
For more information regarding the organisation of the sport, see Camanachd AssociationThe Camanachd Association is the World governing body of the Scottish sport of shinty. The body is based in Inverness, Highland, and is in charge of the rules of the game...
In common with many sports, it became formalised in the
Victorian EraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
and the first organised clubs were established in cities such as Glasgow and London where there were thousands of Gaels resident.
In 1887, a historic game was played between
Glenurquhart Shinty ClubGlenurquhart Shinty Club is a shinty team which plays in Drumnadrochit on the banks of Loch Ness, Scotland. It draws its players from the part of the Great Glen which encompasses Drumnadrochit, Lewiston and Glenurquhart...
and
Strathglass Shinty ClubStrathglass Shinty Club or "Comunn Camanachd Straghlais" in Scottish Gaelic is a shinty club from Cannich, Inverness-shire. The Club was founded in 1879, is considered to be the oldest constituted club in shinty and played a major role in the development of the rules of the sport...
in
InvernessInverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...
. This game was attended by thousands of people and was a major milestone in developing a set of common rules. This fixture was to be repeated on 12 January 2007 in Inverness as the opening centrepiece of the
Highland 2007Highland 2007 was a year-long celebration of Highland culture which took place from January until December 2007. It involved local communities throughout the Scottish Highlands and Islands as well as people across Scotland, the UK and beyond....
celebrations in Scotland, but was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
The modern sport is governed by the
Camanachd AssociationThe Camanachd Association is the World governing body of the Scottish sport of shinty. The body is based in Inverness, Highland, and is in charge of the rules of the game...
(Scots Gaelic: Comann na Camanachd). The association came into being in the late
Victorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
in as a means of formulating common rules to unite the various different codes and rules which differed between neighbouring glens, in this the sport shares similarities with other sports which became organised around this time. The first meeting of the Camanachd Association was held in
KingussieKingussie is a small town in the Highland region of Scotland. It is one settlement in the Highland Council ward of Badenoch and Strathspey, and is the capital of the district of Badenoch. It lies beside the A9 road, although the old route of the A9 serves as the town's main street...
in 1893.
The Camanachd Association maintained its initial structure for much of its first century, but the 'Future of Shinty' Report published in 1981 led to a compete restructuring of the way in which shinty was organised and managed. That, in turn, led to the move away from a dependence on volunteers to govern the sport, to the Association's first salaried employees being employed.
Competitions
Clubs compete in various competitions, both cup and league, on a national and also North/South basis. While the top
Premier DivisionThe Premier Division is a league for shinty teams. It is the primary league competition in shinty and top tier of the Shinty league system. The Premier Division was formed in 1996 in order to create a Scotland-wide league set-up for the first time...
hs been played on a Scotland-wide basis since 1996, the lower leagues are based on geography. Many clubs run second teams which also compete in these leagues against clubs with only one senior side.
League Shinty
For more information, see Shinty league systemThe Shinty league system is a series of interconnected leagues for shinty in Scotland. It is administered by the Camanachd Association.-About the system:...
In League shinty, Kingussie has been dominant for the past 20 years and, according to the Guinness Book of Records 2005, is world sport's most successful sporting team of all time,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/article1033244.ece winning 20 consecutive league championships and going 4 years without losing a single fixture in the early 1990s. This incredible, unmatched run of dominance was ended on 2 September by ancient rivals Newtonmore who defeated
Oban CamanachdOban Camanachd is one of the oldest Camanachd clubs playing in the Shinty leagues of Scotland. they were relegated from the Premier League. They have a reserve team called Lochside Rovers.- History:...
2-0 to ensure that Kingussie could not catch the team at the top of the
Premier DivisionThe Premier Division is a league for shinty teams. It is the primary league competition in shinty and top tier of the Shinty league system. The Premier Division was formed in 1996 in order to create a Scotland-wide league set-up for the first time...
. However, Newtonmore were unable to usurp their neighbours as champions, as the first post-Kingussie champions were confirmed as
Fort WilliamFort William Shinty Club is a shinty club from Fort William, Lochaber, Scotland. The first team were Camanachd Cup holders four times in succession, between 2007 and 2010 but were knocked out in the second round in 2011...
who sealed the title on 30 September 2006 having won their games in hand over Newtonmore. Kingussie regained the title in 2007.
Cup Shinty
League shinty has always been seen as being less important than cup shinty and the premier national competition remains the Scottish Cup or the Camanachd Association Challenge Cup (the
Camanachd CupThe Camanachd Association Challenge Cup AKA the Camanachd Cup or Scottish Cup is the premier prize in the sport of shinty...
for short) which has also been dominated by Kingussie in the last twenty years. The other dominant team in shinty history has been Newtonmore, Kingussie's near neighbours. However, these two teams only met in the Camanachd Cup Final for the first time in 1984 as before 1983 the competition was designed to ensure the final was a North/South affair.
The
Macaulay CupThe MacAulay Association Camanachd Cup is a trophy in the sport of shinty. It is competed for by the eight highest-placed league teams from the north and south areas at the end of the previous season. The first winner of the cup, in 1947, was Newtonmore. It will be sponsored by Artemis from the...
still preserves this guaranteed North/South Final. There are also national equivalents for the Camanachd Cup for intermediate and junior teams. There are also regional cups for both senior and junior teams. the
MacTavish CupThe MacTavish Cup is a knock-out cup competition in the sport of shinty. It is competed for by senior teams from the North of Scotland district...
is the senior cup for the North and the
Glasgow Celtic Society CupThe Glasgow Celtic Society Cup is a knock-out cup competition in the sport of shinty. Entry is open to all senior teams from the South District playing in the Premier Division and South Division One. It is the oldest competition in the sport, first being played for in 1879...
is the one for the South.
There are also many cups which are played as annual events between two local rivals, the
Lovat CupThe Lovat Cup is a trophy in the sport of shinty contested annually at New Year by Beauly Shinty Club and Lovat Shinty Club.The trophy was first played for in 1904 and is very popular, attracting the second largest crowd for a shinty fixture in Scotland, outwith the Camanachd Cup Final. The...
between
LovatLovat Shinty Club is a shinty club from Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire, Scotland. The club was formed in 1888 and has a healthy rivalry with near neighbours Beauly...
and
BeaulyBeauly Shinty Club is a shinty club from Beauly, Scotland. The club was founded in 1892. The club has two sides, the first team competing in Marine Harvest North Division One and the second team in North Division Three.-History:...
is the most prestigious of these.
Playing Season
Shinty was traditionally played through the
winterWinter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...
, based around the tradition of the "Iomain Challainn", where
New YearThe New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
was marked by a game between neighbouring parishes. The
summerSummer is the warmest of the four temperate seasons, between spring and autumn. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day-length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice...
was left free for seasonal work and friendly tournaments. The Winter season always ran over however, and many teams would find themselves finishing the previous season only weeks before the next one would start.
In 2003, shinty clubs voted for a trial period of two years of a summer season from March to October, with a view to moving permanently to summer shinty if the experiment was judged to be a success. Despite opposition from the "Big Two",
KingussieKingussie is a small town in the Highland region of Scotland. It is one settlement in the Highland Council ward of Badenoch and Strathspey, and is the capital of the district of Badenoch. It lies beside the A9 road, although the old route of the A9 serves as the town's main street...
and Newtonmore, and other small groups in the game, an
EGMAn extraordinary general meeting, commonly abbreviated as EGM, is a meeting of members of an organisation, shareholders of a company, or employees of an official body, which occurs at an irregular time. The term is usually used where the group would ordinarily hold an annual general meeting , but...
in November 2005 voted by an overwhelming majority (well over the required two thirds) to make summer shinty the basis upon which the game would proceed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/article1033244.ece
There have been teething problems since the move to summer shinty, with a couple of teams being culpable for the season running over into November and December. Season 2010 saw the league season finished by the first weekend in October, almost on schedule.
Shinty does still get played during the winter, in
University ShintyShinty teams which play University Shinty are clubs which play under the banner of a university. However, these clubs are not always student teams in the strictest sense of the word and have a long history of participation at national senior level....
and in New Year fixtures, the most prestigious of which is the
Lovat CupThe Lovat Cup is a trophy in the sport of shinty contested annually at New Year by Beauly Shinty Club and Lovat Shinty Club.The trophy was first played for in 1904 and is very popular, attracting the second largest crowd for a shinty fixture in Scotland, outwith the Camanachd Cup Final. The...
, played between Beauly and Lovat.
http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/14162/Holders_Lovat_ranked_favourites_to_retain_cup.html
Media Coverage
Local papers such as the
West Highland Free PressThe West Highland Free Press was founded in the Scottish Highlands in 1972 as a left-wing weekly newspaper, but with the principal objective of providing its immediate circulation area with the service which a local paper is expected to provide...
and the
Oban TimesThe Oban Times is a local newspaper, based/published in Oban, Argyll and Bute and covering the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland and reporting on issues from the Mull of Kintyre to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland, to the Inner and Outer Hebridean Islands with Argyll, and Lochaber as its...
and the
Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire StandardThe Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire Standard is a weekly tabloid newspaper serving the Cowal area of Argyll, in western Scotland. It is edited and printed in Dunoon, and is known locally as the Standard...
have in-depth shinty reports. The Inverness based media reduce shinty coverage to one summary of the whole weekend's action as do national newspapers such as the
Sunday HeraldThe Sunday Herald is a Scottish Sunday newspaper launched on 7 February 1999. The ABC audited circulation in April 2011 showed sales of 31,123.From the start it has combined a centre-left stance with support for Scottish devolution...
and the Sunday Post. The only significant national press coverage is of the
Camanachd CupThe Camanachd Association Challenge Cup AKA the Camanachd Cup or Scottish Cup is the premier prize in the sport of shinty...
final.
Although Camanachd Cup finals and internationals have been shown over the years, 2006 marked the first ever regular TV deal for shinty with matches being shown on the BBC Sports show
Spòrs. This was then followed by the STV show "An Caman".
2009 saw the Camanachd Association sign a deal with
BBC AlbaBBC Gàidhlig is the department of BBC Scotland that produces Scottish Gaelic language programming. This includes TV programmes for BBC Alba and BBC Two Scotland, the BBC Radio nan Gàidheal radio station and the BBC Alba website.-Television:...
to broadcast all national finals as well as the Marine Harvest Festival. The MacAulay Cup and Camanachd Cup final were also shown on
BBC TwoBBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
. There is also an increasing amount of shinty on the internet with various clips garnering attention on video sites such as
YouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. This move to YouTube however has been in part due to a breakdown in the relationship between the BBC and the Camanachd Assocaition which has seen many fixtures disappear from the TV schedules.
The sport is given a lot of exposure on
BBC Radio nan GaidhealBBC Radio nan Gàidheal is a British radio station, broadcasting in Scottish Gaelic. It is operated by the BBC as part of its portfolio of television and radio services broadcasting to Scotland....
by the programme, Spòrs na Seachdain, although English-language radio interest is usually restricted to the big events in the year. Commentary on the Camanachd Cup Final is provided in both English and Gaelic.
Shinty outside the Highlands
Now predominantly a Highland game, there are also clubs found in
AberdeenAberdeen University Shinty Club is a shinty club from Aberdeen, Scotland. They play in Marine Harvest North Division Three. It holds the distinction of being the oldest constituted shinty club in Scotland, and therefore the world, dating back to 9 November 1861 in a document held by the...
,
EdinburghForth Camanachd was a women's shinty club based in Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland. The club was established in 2006 and won both the Valerie Fraser Cup and the Caledonian Canal Challenge Cup in its time in existence.The club has now merged with Aberdour Shinty Club as of the 2011...
,
GlasgowGlasgow Mid Argyll Shinty Club AKA GMA is a shinty club from Glasgow, Scotland. It is the only senior side in Glasgow and was founded in 1928. They currently play in the Premier Division as of 2010...
,
PerthTayforth Camanachd is a shinty team from Perth, Scotland. Whilst being based in Perth, the team draws players from all over the Tayside and Lothian area...
and even
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
University ShintyShinty teams which play University Shinty are clubs which play under the banner of a university. However, these clubs are not always student teams in the strictest sense of the word and have a long history of participation at national senior level....
is a popular section of the sport, with almost all Scotland's main universities possessing a team. Historically,
Glasgow UniversityThe University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
,
Aberdeen UniversityThe University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
and
Edinburgh UniversityThe University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
have vied for supremacy but in recent years,
Strathclyde UniversityThe University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university...
,
Robert Gordon's CollegeRobert Gordon's College is a private co-educational day school in Aberdeen, Scotland. The school caters for pupils from Nursery-S6.-History:...
,
Dundee UniversityThe University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
, and the University of St. Andrews have risen to prominence. It is also played in the
British ArmyThe British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
with
The Scots Shinty ClubThe SCOTS is the only shinty team in the British Armed Forces. It was established in 1994 and the club originally played under the name of the Queen's Own Highlanders...
keeping alive the tradition of the game being played in the Forces.
London CamanachdLondon Camanachd is the only shinty club in England. They do not field a competitive team at present. They have historically been attached to the South District. They went into abeyance in 1992 but were reconstituted in 2005...
is the only shinty club in England. They do not play league matches but do compete at present in the Bullough Cup. They have historically been attached to the South District. They went into abeyance in 1992, but were reconstituted in 2005. They played the first officially recognised shinty match outside Scotland in 80 years on Saturday 22 July 2006 against the Highlanders. Shinty was previously played widely in England in the 19th century and early 20th century, and
Nottingham Forest F.C.Nottingham Forest Football Club is an English Association Football club based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, that plays in the Football League Championship...
was established by Shinty Players.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/top-football-clubs-played-host-to-scots-sport-of-shinty-415259.html
Shinty is also spreading to
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
; though originally played in the 18th and 19th century by Scottish immigrants, the sport died out. However, it is enjoying a revival; teams such as Northern California Camanachd Club (NCCC), Washington Camanachd Club (WACC), and Oregon Shinty-Camanachd (OSC) play at
Highland GamesHighland games are events held throughout the &Highland games are events held throughout the &Highland games are events held throughout the &(-è_çà in Scotland and other countries as a way of celebrating Scottish and Celtic culture and heritage, especially that of the Scottish Highlands. Certain...
and other venues across the USA. See
Shinty in North AmericaShinty was played in its original form throughout North and South America by Scottish settlers until the early 1900s when the practice died out. Shinty, and its close Irish relative hurling, are recognised as being the progenitors of ice hockey and are an important part of North America's modern...
.
December 28, 2010 will see Ireland hold its first dedicated shinty match in Westmeath, with participation from players who have played the Compromise rules Shinty/Hurling.
http://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/sport/gaa/articles/2010/12/23/4002317-kilkenny-stars-to-feature-in-fundraising-shinty-game/
Shinty/Hurling Internationals
In recognition of shinty's shared roots with hurling, an annual international between the two codes from
ScotlandThe Scotland national shinty team is the team selected to represent Scotland and the sport of shinty in the annual composite rules international with the Ireland national hurling team. The team represents the Camanachd Association....
and Ireland is played on a home and away basis using composite rules. In recent years the Irish have had the upper hand, but the Scots won the fixture narrowly in 2005 and again in 2006, this time at
Croke ParkCroke Park in Dublin is the principal stadium and headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association , Ireland's biggest sporting organisation...
,
Dublin, albeit with the Irish fielding weaker players from the second tier
Christy Ring CupThe Christy Ring Cup is an annual hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association since 2005 for middle-ranking hurling teams in Ireland....
. Scotland made it four in a row when they won in 2008.
In popular culture
- Billy Connolly
William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...
suggested in September 2009 that shinty should become Scotland's national sport because the Scotland football team's performances had been so bad.
- Runrig
Runrig are a Scottish Celtic rock group formed in Skye, in 1973 under the name 'The Run Rig Dance Band'. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included songwriters Rory Macdonald and Calum Macdonald. The current line-up also includes longtime members Malcolm Jones, Iain Bayne, and more...
have referred to shinty in several songs, Recovery, Pride of the Summer and most explicitly in the song Clash of the AshClash Of The Ash is the first single from Runrig's thirteenth studio album Everything You See, and was released as a single in 2007. The song is based around the sport of shinty and has become an anthem for the sport...
, which is specifically about the sport.
- The accordionist Gary Innes
Gary Innes is a Scottish musician, star shinty player and broadcaster from Spean Bridge, Lochaber, Scotland. He is a wizard accordion player and established Scottish shinty Internationalist...
has also played for Scotland 8 times at shinty.
- Some shinty players have asserted that Quidditch
Quidditch is a fictional sport developed by British author J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series of novels. It is described as an extremely rough, but very popular, semi-contact sport, played by wizards and witches around the world...
, the fictional sport in the Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
book and film series by J.K. Rowling was inspired by shinty.
- The TV series Hamish MacBeth
Hamish Macbeth is a fictional police officer who serves as his town's detective in a series of mystery novels created by M. C. Beaton . The novels are published in the UK by Constable & Robinson. In an interview, the author recalls,...
featured a shinty match as an integral part of the plot of the episode More Than A Game, with real players, Dallas Young of Kingussie and Neil "Ach" MacRae of Kinlochshiel Shinty Club playing pivotal roles.
- A shinty training session is shown in the second episode of the BBC series Monty Halls' Great Escape
Monty Halls' Great Escape is a British television programme broadcast on BBC Two from 1 March 2009...
.
External links