The Glen makes its Annual Cup Final Appearance and the “D” almost never noticed.

Now that the nights are drawing in, it’s finally time for the “D-Meister” to get back to keeping out of it. Actually not quite true. Had the Glen - the black and reds as the Courier calls them - actually played up to expectations then the Wing Centre would have fired out the stuff on a regular weekly basis.

However it’s not quite so simple to find words of easy humour when the situation does not lend itself to any sort of light-hearted approach. It’s the same with the performance of Andy Murray. In fact if the “D” was on Twitter - heaven forbid-yours truly would have created the weareallandymurraynow# so Glenurquhart techies could empathise with each other ‘cos there is no doubt that that guy from Dunblane is the Glenurquhart of tennis. In truth though the “D-Meister” thinks it’s the other way round - it’s simply that the Glenurquhart Club is the Andy Murray of shinty.  Not only that but the crowd is always against him too- just like they are with the Glen.

Thank goodness that at least there will be no sound system at Castle Leod tomorrow and after this odd insectless summer the chances of being distracted by a butterfly are also pretty remote.

Newtonmore - definitely the Djokovic of shinty egged on by a wee McEnroe good luck charm. And Kingussie?

Let’s leave that right there because Kingussie are about to arrive in the Glen with their first team for a game that dare not speak its name - and though Big Bad Bill in the P&J says they are short of players like Savio and Lee , no one in the Glen believes a word he says. It’s a fair bet that all the Moshi Monsters from the high country will be there - and we definitely won’t have Stuart Mackintosh because he is supposed to take wee Hamish out for a walk since they apparently both need the exercise.

So who will be the goalie? Billy Macleod certainly could do the job once upon a time as could Garry Mac - also once upon a time. Camino Maclennan can do the job in real time but he must be available for the Strathdearn final over the hill and across the fields at Spatown. 

The answer is that your guess is as good as the Wing Centre’s and truth be told that guess will be as good as the guess of the two Glen Supremos Bill & Dave. Still they are old hands at this pick and patch now since they have had to do it all season. The first thought that comes to this scribe’s mind is that they have not had a full set of players to pick from since the Glen played Northern California in Central Park or somewhere.

But even that is not true. In the only really tough game outside this Strathdearn experience the Glen edged a fine result over an excellent Lochside Rovers team in the Sutherland thanks to two goals from young Master Connor Golabeck who really should have been stateside on the day. That day however some sort of belief came into the team and a sort of corner had been turned.

In the Strathdearn round following that, the Glenners  managed to beat Glengarry up at “Parc des Midges” by 3 goals to 2. Yours truly was present on that occasion and it has to be said that the Glen youngsters played well enough surviving a few early scares but three first half goals from James “Frosty” made the difference in the end. They were all well struck “raspers” which gave the Garry keeper no real chance. He might have had several more on the day but why be greedy?

Then it was over to Braeview where Marc MacLachlan got a hat-trick for the Beaulacs but incredibly he lost because the Glen scored 4-through very early strikes by Fin Robertson, and Calum “Rhino” Miller supported by two other late first half goals by Frosty (see a theme here?) and Daniel Mackintosh. 
Then the Glen proceeded to hold on till the final whistle while Beauly threw everything forward including veteran Rodger Cormack to no avail. Their shooting on the day was so wild that it is no wonder the Community Council is inundated with complaints from the householders about balls going in the garden. 
 Bet you it’s a topic on the “Beauly Discussions” Facebook page but strength to the elbows of Murph and his Men. You keep putting the ball in those gardens. 
Thankfully those who whine about the beastly locals and their indolent Highland ways on the “Drumnadrochit Discussions” FB page live too far away from the shinty field to get exercised about Frosty’s powerful shooting. Don’t get the D-Meister wrong, a lot of Frosty’s shots are gloriously accurate and hard - though making Ally McAdam pull off a wonder save for Strath last week was hardly fair. It just made the rest of the Glasaich feel bad about how far they have yet to go.

No the thing about the Frost is that at times he is not the sort of man to miss an opportunity to…..well miss an opportunity. 
Apart from irritating John Cameron’s bulls in Sandy Whyte’s field with several flashing drives two of which hit the Highlander - who was not amused and meant the ball was left in the field - there was one shot-taken from a narrow angle from the bowling green side against Kingussie, that the Wing Centre found inside the fence up at Cnoc an Burra.

To be fair, the big fellow got four goals against the Fort in the next round and was helped by an even bigger fellow Calum Smith who hit one while Cairn Urquhart got the other.

In the semi, Kingussie came to Drum. It was in a way a reversal of the Sutherland semi where they beat the Glen 2-1 on the Bught thanks to goals from Roddy Young and Kevin Thain. 
This time in Drum, Roddy again took his chance but Kevin for some inexplicable reason did not. Meanwhile the Frostachan had scored two early goals but the rest of the front men - and whisper it the man himself - missed enough chances for the Glen to have been comfortably 5 ahead before Kevin missed his chance.
 Perhaps Dame Fortune also smiled when Ronaldo suffered a recurrence of his ankle injury, though perhaps also the great man’s heart had sunk “Andy-Murray” fashion after Camino pulled off three superb saves from his strikes at goal. 
Anyway a win is a win and let’s hope the top team pick one up tomorrow against the big Kings as well.

Whatever, we are into the final of the Strathdearn and Frosty appears to have scored 29 goals according to the Camanachd stats page this season including 10 in the Strathdearn. He needs to get some more on Saturday - and only then will he be upsides with his dad who won a ‘Dearn medal back in 1977.

Interestingly, for those with an eye on the pub quiz, Stuart Reid will also be trying to keep up with his dad since Mr. Reid himself picked up a winner’s medal back then too.

Good luck to Chrissie and all the lads.

Thanks also go to Sheena Lloyd for all the pics except this one of the girls (lifted from the Club website) picking up their training jackets which have been sponsored by our old friend Donnie at Nodram. 

N. B.    The girls seem to have put their initials on them so they know who they belong to. The guys , it appears, just pick them up sniff them and they know immediately who the jacket belongs to. Strange, the little differences between men and women.


 

 

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