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SHINTY
Shinty, (Scottish Gaelic 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, especially in England.[1]
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.
In the Scottish Lowlands, it was formerly referred to as common/cammon (caman), cammock (from Scottish Gaelic camag), knotty and various other names.
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, 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.
Whilst erroneous comparisons are often made with field hockey, the two sports are very different. 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, this is defined as hacking. A player may tackle using the body as long as this is shoulder-to-shoulder as in football.
A player may only stop the ball with the stick, 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.
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.
[edit] 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 (Scots Gaelic:Comann 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.
[edit] Competitions
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.
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 2006 final was played, for the first time, in Dunoon between holders Fort William and Kingussie. Kingussie regained the cup after three years due to a majestic performance by Ronald Ross.
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, 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 2nd September by ancient rivals Newtonmore who defeated Oban Camanachd 2-0 to ensure that Kingussie could not catch the team at the top of the league. However, Newtonmore were unable to usurp their neighbours as champions, as the first post-Kingussie champions were confirmed as Fort William who sealed the title on 30th September 2006 having won their games in hand over Newtonmore.
[edit] Summer Shinty
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.
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 Gordon's College and Dundee University have risen to prominence. It is also played in the Army with The Highlanders Shinty Club keeping alive the tradition of the game being played in the Forces. See also University Shinty.
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 won the fixture narrowly in 2005 and again in 2006, this time at Croke Park, Dublin.
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.
In August 2006, the Camanachd Association decided to move its main offices to Inverness from Banavie near Fort William. This move was met with consternation by many in the sporting community with calls for an extraordinary general meeting.
[edit] Shinty Abroad
London Camanachd 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 22nd 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. was established by Shinty Players. See References Section for further information.
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 Morro Bay Shinty Club, play on the Highland Games circuit in California. There are three further clubs in existence. See also Shinty in North America.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1431145.ece
[edit] External links
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