Glenurquhart confirmed their status as 2008 Marine Harvest Team of the Year at the Marine Harvest Clash of the Camans Festival of Shinty at An Aird, Fort William on Saturday 20 June 2009.
Glenurquhart and Inveraray opened the senior event but a match in which both goalkeepers were on top ended up goalless and was decided by a penalty shoot-out. A combination of high and wide penalty hits and some good goalkeeping from the Glen’s Stuart MacKintosh resulted in Neale Reid converting the only successful penalty of the day to put Glenurquhart into the final.
Fort William started as favourites in the second semi final against Kingussie as no less that 8 players from Jimmy Gow’s side from the previous week’s MacTavish Cup Final were unavailable. The absentees included Ronald Ross, John Hutchison and Ally MacLeod although it should also be said that the Fort also put out a young squad with several of their U17 stars on display. Kingussie gave youngsters such as 15 year old Thomas Borthwick the chance to shine. Kingussie’s Andrew Borthwick was the busier keeper in the early stages and he made a couple of good saves to keep the scores level. Kingussie took a first half lead when an innocuous shot from Kevin Thain deceived Fort keeper Scott MacNeill and ended up in the back of the net. The goal seemed to deflate Fort William and although they had most of the pressure for the remainder of the game, they couldn’t get past the Kingussie defence and so it was the men, or should that be lads, from Kingussie who went forward to meet Glenurquhart in the final.
Whilst the semi finals were shorter matches, the final was a full 45 minute each way game. Glenurquhart had to replace keeper Stuart MacKintosh, hero from their semi final win, as his band were playing at an evening function and so Iain MacLeod took his place between the sticks. The Glen scored a goal in each half – Neale Reid in the first and Billy Urquhart in the second – to give them a 2-0 victory. However Kingussie were never out of it and they had a particular period of sustained pressure in the second half but they found Iain MacLeod in the Glen goal to be an able deputy for MacKintosh.
The sides are due to meet twice on league duty in the coming weeks and whereas this win will give the men from the Glen confidence, both sides will have a much different starting line up when league points are at stake.