At 6.31am we gave a guard of honour to the Olympic Torch as Eilidh MacKenzie took it from the Council Chambers in Stornoway to start off an historic relay round the town. This was great honour for the Torch – sorry Club – and it was an incredible event for our players to be part of. We are sure the flame will inspire the club for the rest of the season. Sean is already getting ready to add to his international honours by putting his name forward for the Team GB Shinty Squad at Rio 2016.
Unfortunately the BBC London folk weren’t as clued up about Shinty as our BBC Alba friends are and called us “a local hockey team”, at 6.31 yet seemed to have reams of information about just about everything else to do with the relay, anyway you can get your licence fees worth here – http://www.bbc.co.uk/torchrelay/day24 (Update, Jane and Iain who were doing the twitter feed for the Beeb issued an apology at 1015 blaming “untrained English eyes”, good on them – welcome at Shawbost anytime)
It’s not just the Beeb who have a little trouble with Scottish sensibilities though, Dave MacPherson of Inveraray, who has battled cancer to return to the peak of shinty and has raised a good whack of money for Friends of the Beatson, is going to pick up the torch later on in INVERURIE as the relay organisers got the two places mixed – another Fyne mess, excuse the pun – best of luck to Dave, we’re sure you’ll do shinty proud. http://www.london2012.com/torch-relay/torchbearers/torchbearers=david-macpherson-4709/
Our BBC Alba buddies had a deagh thaisbeanadh-sleamhnaig – no photos of our boys there but there is one of Cleody and Martha – big supporters of shinty. http://www.bbc.co.uk/naidheachdan/18393009