Kingussie have produced a 2014 souvenir calendar which both celebrates their 1914 Camanachd Cup winning team and remembers the Kingussie men who served their country during the Great War, 1914-18.
Six members of the victorious 1914 Camanachd Cup winning team made the ultimate sacrifice as they laid down their lives for their country during the conflict.
Kingussie met Kyles Athletic in the 1914 Camanachd Cup Final at Possil Park, Glasgow on Saturday 4 of April 1914. A special train left Aviemore at 6am as 200 passengers made the journey south for the match. Nobody realised at the time that this would be the last competitive match the club would play for many years and that some of the players would never play for Kingussie again.
Although Kyles opened the scoring, Kingussie produced one of the best performances in the club’s history to win 6-1 and add the Camanachd Cup to the MacTavish Cup they had already won that season.
Exactly four months later on Tuesday 4 August 1914, the Headquarters of Scottish Command in Edinburgh received a telegram from the British Government which simply read “mobilise”. Britain had declared war on Germany. At noon on Wednesday 5 August 1914, the Kingussie contingent of the Cameron Highlanders left Kingussie Railway station to join their unit in Inverness before heading south to Bedford to prepare for War.
It was at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 that the Kingussie men got their first introduction to the grim realities of war. Just eleven months after celebrating a Camanachd Cup victory on a field in Glasgow, the young men from Kingussie were in frontline action in the fields of Northern France.
It was at the Battle of Festubert that the first member of the Kingussie shinty squad was killed. John MacPherson died on the first night of the battle on Monday 17 May 1915. William MacGillivray, the Camanachd Cup winning captain from the year before, was killed the next day.
A young Kingussie territorial sent a letter home describing the Battle of Festubert. An extract reads, “We got the order to march to the front trenches at 5pm on Monday 17 May 1915. We had to wait 20 minutes while our artillery were shelling the German position. Then we got the order to fix bayonets and charge. As we went over the top, the German gunners opened fire on us, but we kept on. Our boys were getting bowled over but we reached the German frontline trench and found they had evacuated it. In the morning at roll call there were 30 Kingussie boys amongst the dead and wounded. I don’t know how we weren’t all killed.”
The Camanachd Association produced a roll of honour after World War One to remember the Shinty players who gave their lives in the conflict. As the preface to the roll of honour states; “Players of the old national pastime of the Highlands readily came forward and laid down their lives in the greater game of war, when the contest was for King and country.”
This 2014 souvenir calendar is A3 size and features profiles of the 1914 players alongside the 2013 players and includes 22 action photographs from the 2013 season as well as squad pictures. It is available to buy from various outlets in the town including Gow’s Garage, Pam’s Coffee shop, Silverfjord Hotel, Star Hotel, Duke of Gordon Hotel and Caberfeidh Horizons (book shop). Enquiries can be made via the Kingussie website or Facebook page.
The calendar is produced to honour all Kingussie men who went to war in the 1914-18 conflict; those who died and those who returned, shinty players or not, and 100 years later Kingussie Camanachd have paid a fitting tribute to the bravery and courage of the men of their town.
Lest we forget.