Extra ! Extra! Read All About It

The Wing Centre likes to read the West Highland Free Press on a Friday if not for the politics at least for the shinty which is regularly carried-though to be fair, given the paper is, as would be expected, always focused on the Island or the Western seaboard, it perhaps does not really fit the Great Glen. Can’t blame them for that though when a copy was bought to read about the Glen Under 17s magnificent win over Skye, there wasn’t a word to be seen in print. Then the Glen Women’s 2nds defeated Kinlochshiel 3-2 this Saturday past at Blairbeg in the WCA Mowi North Division 2 and only the barest minimum appeared in the pages of the press. So, what to do? Nothing for it but to actually write the report oneself.

A short investigation soon revealed that Kinlochshiel were actually putting out quite a strong side with both Poppy and Lexie Mackenzie playing in the starting squad. The Glen by way of contrast put out a younger team with a backbone of some more experienced older players like Alison Van Loon, Amanda MacLennan and Lyndsey Fleming also in the side to guide the youngsters. The ploy worked well and after a strong opening spell the Glen went ahead with an early strike from Amanda Maclennan which was quickly doubled when a Hayley Ross strike from close in made the score 2-0 in favour of the home side.

 Unfortunately, an injury to the scorer took away some of the Glen’s momentum and this allowed ‘Shiel to fight back with two goals from Poppy Mackenzie to level the tie at the halfway mark.

From this point the game became extremely competitive but goalkeeper Alison Van Loon as well the rest of her defence including daughters Rebecca and Emily held firm limiting the ‘Shiel forwards to a few meagre chances which they could not convert. Meanwhile the Glen centreline of Tara Maclelland, Hayley Ross and Grace Montague continued to graft in the midfield and a number of opportunities were created for both Glen front players Lyndsay Fleming and Amanda Maclennan.

Glen made good use of all four substitutes with Connie Maclennan coming on up front and Jessica Crichton, Lucy Burnett and Daisy Ross all bringing their fresh legs to the contest. Eventually just when it looked like stalemate was on the cards Amanda Maclennan, who had been struck in the face by a ‘Shiel hit out and played on through the pain, found herself in just the right place to pick up a cross ball from Fleming and thus was able to snatch the winner with a fine back hand strike which found the net despite a valiant effort by the ‘Shiel keeper to prevent the ball crossing the line. The only unfortunate aspect to the game was its ending when Glen youngster Daisy Ross picked up a painful hand injury just before the full-time whistle.

So, there we have it.

If the Glen win and nobody reports it - did it even happen?

It certainly did- and what is more the Glen Under 17s  also won over Shiel (7- 4) in the London Shield. Scorers were Seonaidh MacLeod (2) David Hart (1) Alfie MacLeod (1) Daniel MacLean (3)

With both those games being

against West Highland opposition a quick check of the WHFP proved to be a disappointment. Again, there was an absence of coverage in the printed media. 

We could however do with an absence of coverage in the printed media with regard to how the Glen’s Premier League side lost to Kingussie. The WHFP certainly mentioned the result but fortunately did not carry a report. I say “fortunately”- but perhaps one should say unfortunately. Certainly the score made it seem that the match was somewhat one sided but then you cannot always go by the score . A report would have explained how Kingussie hung on for all of the 90 minutes under severe pressure and were fortunate to get away with the result they did. Indeed, if Dylan and Savio had not been playing the game would have ended in a 1-1 draw. Perhaps -but then again …….