Memory Lane – Season 1986 / 87 – Part 32. | |
22 December 2009 Saturday 25 April 1987 - North Division 3 – Skye Camanachd 3 Beauly 2 The Skye Camanachd second team finished their season on a high with a 3-2 win over Beauly in an evenly contested, competitive match at Battery Park, Lochcarron. The game was well refereed by Skye Camanachd reserve team captain Neil MacLean - who was unable to play because of injury. MacLean took charge as there were no qualified referees available to be allocated the fixture. Skye Camanachd were severely weakened as some players were unavailable and Archie MacDonald’s selection options were limited further as several of his players had been called up to cover first team absentees for the trip to Lovat. In fact Calum “Columbo” Nicolson, John “Bodach” MacKenzie and Ally MacInnes were the only recognised second team players on show and all 3 had to play out of position. Ruairidh MacDonald from Staffin made his first appearance for Skye and juvenile player Calum Graham slotted into a defensive position for what was also his debut. Brothers Ron and Ally MacPherson were both home in Heaste on holiday and they too came into the side. Beauly also gave youth a chance for this game and they surprised Skye by taking the lead after only 9 minutes. Skye then pressured the Beauly goal but they didn’t get back on level terms until 10 minutes before the break. Full forward Charlie Devlin was the scorer with a really well taken effort. Devlin was Skye’s most dangerous forward and he gave the experienced Beauly full back Sandy MacKay a difficult afternoon. Just 5 minutes into the second half, Devlin struck again and his crisp finish gave Skye a 2-1 lead. Beauly came back into the game and both teams had chances to score before Beauly levelled the game after 58 minutes. A share of the points looked likely at this stage with only a defensive mistake or a moment of brilliance likely to influence the outcome. Fortunately for home side it was the latter as buckshee forward Davie Pringle collected a lose ball around 30 yards from goal and cracked an unstoppable effort into the back of the net to win the game for Skye. The Islanders put in a good all-round team effort under the circumstances. They were particularly well served by John “Bodach” MacKenzie at full centre, James “Paddy” Stephenson at wing forward and of course Charlie Devlin up front. |