Shinty
By Liz Perry
Monday 2nd November 2009
Monday 2nd November 2009
As the Scottish National Sport, Shinty, described as “ice hockey on grass” or “contact golf”, is decidedly under-represented. You would expect Shinty to be well supported by St Andrews’ Athletic Union, the oldest Scottish University, but sadly this is not the case. Despite Scottish ministers pumping funds into our under-appreciated sport, this does not seem to have been felt on the University level. In fact we are the only AU team who organises their own league. Currently, we are coaching ourselves and had to run our own pre-seasonal training in order to prepare ourselves for the forthcoming season and to boost team moral, due to not being picked for a focus sport. Moreover, unlike other Scottish Universities, St Andrews’ Shinty team is 99% composed of pure beginners who have not heard of the illustrious stick and ball game. Perhaps for this reason, we had not won a league game in over 5 years... But there is a rainbow over the horizon, due to the hard work and dedication of our team in the previous years we have gone from strength to strength, even without external support. This culminated in our first win in living memory, beating a tough Aberdeen side, the winners of the 2009 Fresher’s Tournament, 4-2. Nor was this a fluke win, our team dynamic is only getting stronger and we have high hopes for a good finish in the league table as well as for getting team members into the North Vs South Scottish trials. However, we need to be given the recognition that we deserve and taken seriously in order to progress further. So for all you non-believers out there, watch this space!!