Skye Camanachd - Camanachd Cup Winners 1990 – Part 1. | |
28 May 2010 Wednesday 2 June 2010 will be the 20th anniversary of Skye Camanachd’s most famous day – a 4-1 win against record Camanachd Cup winners Newtonmore in the 1990 Camanachd Cup Final at An Aird, and the big one came over the sea to Skye for the first time. It was a remarkable season indeed as the Islanders were also MacTavish Cup runners up – losing to Kingussie in the final. They also lost out to Kingussie in North Division 1 by a single goal at a time when North shinty was by far the dominant force so the Camanachd Cup – the big prize in shinty – was no more than the team deserved for their season’s efforts. What made the 1989-90 season all the more remarkable was Skye Camanachd really came from no-where to achieve their most successful year ever. The previous season Skye finished in 5th place in North Division 1, winning only 5 of their 14 league games. Although the team scored a respectable 48 goals, they conceded a massive 64 goals – an average of almost 5 per game which was the worst defensive record in the league - and they earned only 12 points from their 14 games. This included a humiliating 17-0 defeat to Kingussie at the Dell. The start of the 1989-90 season presented one or two selection problems also. Both Willie Cowie and John MacRae had lengthy suspensions to serve from the previous season. Calum Murchison had limited availability as he was working off-shore and promising wing centre Calum MacDonald had relocated to London. However on the plus side, Caley MacLean had returned from his trip to Australia, Duncan MacDougall also returned to the side on a regular basis, Willie MacKinnon returned from college, and Willie MacRae and Willie Cowie had rejected offers to play Highland League football to concentrate on shinty. There was also a new manager at the helm and fitness was to the fore. First team manager Ross Cowie employed fitness coach Gerry Akroyd to work on the squad and the message to the players was simple – no train, no play! It was a strategy that was to provide a bigger return than anyone could have possibly imagined. We were playing in the old winter shinty season which started in September and ended in June. The league season started well with wins against Newtonmore and Fort William in the opening games and by the time Skye travelled to Balgate to face Lovat in the first round of the Camanachd Cup, they sat proudly at the top of National Division 1 with 9 wins from 10 games played – one point ahead of second place Kingussie. www.skyecamanachd.com would like to thank the West Highland Free Press, the Inverness Courier and the Press & Journal for use of their press reports for research purposes. |