Shinty

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Image:CabersGlasgow.jpg Shinty, also known as camanachd or iomain, is a team sport played with sticks and a ball. Now played almost exclusively in the Scottish Highlands, but formerly more widespread, the sport was derived from the same root as the Irish game, hurling and is similar to bandy.

Shinty is one of the forebears of ice hockey, Scottish immigrants to Nova Scotia playing a game on ice in 1800 at Windsor. In Canada, informal hockey games are still called shinny. It was also a predecessor of bandy.

In the Scottish Lowlands, it was formerly referred to as common/cammon (caman), cammock (from Scottish Gaelic camag), knotty and various other names.

1 Game
2 History
3 Clubs
4 Shinty Abroad
5 See also
6 External links

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Game

The objective of the game is to play a small ball into a goal, or "hail", erected at the ends of a 120 to 160-yard-long pitch. The ball is played using the caman, a stick of about 3 1/2 ft in length. Unlike the Irish camán, it has no blade.

A team consists of 12 players, with 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 is also a 6 a side varation with some adjustment in the field size and duration of play.

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History

Gaelic settlers from Ireland brought the sport of hurling to Scotland, where the game was played as such until the 14th century, albeit with a different caman from the Irish one.

The modern sport is governed by the Camanachd Association (Comunn na Camanachd). The association came into being in the late victorian era as a means of formulating common rules to unite the various different codes and rules which even differed between neighbouring glens.

Shinty is traditionally divided into two administrative and playing areas, the North and the South. The geographic divide is at Ballachulish, with all clubs south of here being classified as South teams, although most are still northerly in comparison to most of Scotland.

In 2003, Shinty clubs voted for a trial period of two years of a Summer Season starting in March until October, with a view to moving permanently to Summer Shinty if the experiment was adjudged to be a success. Despite opposition from the "Big Two", Kingussie and Newtonmore and other small groups in the game, an EGM in November 2005 voted by an overwhelming majority (well over the required 2/3s) to make Summer Shinty the basis upon which the game would proceed.

These clubs compete in various competitions, both cup and league, on a national and also North/South basis. Whilst the top two leagues are played on a national basis, the premier competition is the Scottish Cup or the Camanachd Association Challenge Cup, (the Camanachd Cup for short) which has been totally dominated by Kingussie in the last twenty years. The other dominant team in Shinty history has been Newtonmore, Kingussie's near neighbours. Strangely these two teams only met in the Camanachd Cup Final for the first time in 1984. The 2005 Final saw Fort William rivals, Fort William and Kilmallie clash at An Aird in Fort William on a dreich day in front of a healthy crowd, a passionate local derby saw Fort William win the cup for only the second time in their history by defeating their neighbours 3-2 thanks to a last minute goal.

Predominantly a Highland game, there are also clubs to found in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and even London. University Shinty is also a popular section of the sport, with almost all Scotland's main universities possessing a team. Historically, Glasgow University, Aberdeen University and Edinburgh University have vied for supremacy but in recent years, Strathclyde University, Robert Gordons University and the combined Dundee Universities have risen to prominence. Strathclyde University are currently the holders of both the Littlejohn Vase and University League trophies. It is also played in the Army with The Highlanders Shinty Club keeping alive the tradition of the game being played in the Forces.

In recognition of Shinty's shared roots with hurling, an annual international between the two codes from Scotland and Ireland is played on a home and away basis using compromise rules. In recent years the Irish have had the upper hand but the Scots have also had their share of success.

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Clubs

Senior clubs include:

Womens Shinty

Aberdeen University
Dunadd
Edinburgh University
Forth Camanachd
Glasgow Mid Argyll
Glengarry
Inverary
St Andrews University
Tir Connaill Harps
Robert Gordon University

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Shinty Abroad

Shinty is also spreading to North America, though originally played in the 18th and 19th century by Scottish immigrants, the sport died out, however it is enjoying a revival. Two teams, Northern California Camanachd Club (NCCC) and San Luis Obispo Shinty Club, play regularly on the Highland Games circuit in California. On 04 September 2005 the first international Shinty match between a team from USA and a team from Scotland on Scottish soil was played. The event was hosted by the Blairgowrie Highland Games where the Northern California Camanachd Club (NCCC) played exhibition matches against the Tayforth Shinty Club, with Tayforth victorious. This match was followed by the Northern California Camanachd Club participating in the first inaugural Annual Edinburgh East Lothian Levenhall Six a Side Shinty Tournament in Musselburgh on 05 September 2005, other teams were Aberdour and Edinburgh University Women’s team. Edinburgh East Lothian won the tournament with the NCCC coming in 3rd out of 4 teams. As the teams in Scotland have switched from a winter schedule to a summer schedule more visitors to Scotland are seeing the sport and returning very interested in it. There is interest in forming clubs in Houston (Texas), Santa Monica and Bakersfield (Calif), Seattle (Washington), Utah and the Gulf Coast.

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