News Article
The OJ Sports First Shinty Festival
Monday, June 18th, 2012 at 2:03PM
The Camanchd Association (CA) in partnership with OJ Sports held a First Shinty Festival for Inverness schools at Bught Park, Inverness on Friday June 8th.
The Festival was the culmination of a six week block of shinty coaching and healthy eating education that the CA held in eleven schools in and around Inverness as part of a programme funded by The Food Standards Agency. O.J.Sports carried out the swhinty coaching on behalf of CA during the programme and kindly sponsored the festival.
Ardersier (P5), Central (P4&5), Cauldeen (P6), Kinmylies(P4&6), Dalneigh (P4&6), Drakies (P6) and Raigmore (P4) Primaries, who had all taken part in the Food Standards initiative, were joined by Milton of Leys (P3) and B.S.G.I. (P4) Primaries on the day.
The teams competed in two round robin leagues with the top two from each league playing off in the semi – finals. In the Red League, Drakies and Raigmore qualified but there were some notable performances from the youngest team Milton of Leys and Dalneigh P4, Central P4 and Kinmylies P4.
The Yellow League was a closer affair with Dalneigh only dropping a single point but Cauldeen just squeezing past BSGI on goal difference to qualify. Kinmylies P6, Central P5 and Ardersier P5 all gave very good accounts of themselves.
In the semi – finals Dalneigh P6 left it late to break the deadlock against Raigmore and a single goal was enough to see off the impressive younger team.
The Cauldeen v Drakies game required a penalty shoot – out to decide the winner after a goalless game and extra time. Cauldeen scored the decisive spot hit.
The Final proved to be equally close and despite an entertaining end to end game with lots of chances it took a ‘Golden goal’ in extra time for Cauldeen to separate the teams.
JohnAl Macaulay from OJ Sports presented the trophy and t shirts to the Cauldeen team and the player of the tournament medal to Thomas Lewis from Raigmore.
Highland Shinty Development Officer Russell Jones said, “The Food Standards initiative has been a great success for shinty in Inverness and we look forward to the OJ Sports First Shinty Festival becoming an annual event.”
