Girl’s shinty
THE DONELLA Crawford sixes took place last week at Ardnamurchan High School, with a visiting Portree High School team taking the top spot. This tournament is a key fixture for school teams in the shinty calendar and provides a platform for high school girls to come together and compete, while remembering Donella, who was a huge advocate of the girls’ game.
Twelve teams in total travelled to Strontian to take part in what was a great showing of girls’ shinty. For this year’s tournament, three new teams were welcomed with squads from Lochgilphead, Dunfermline and Culloden. In the group stages, each team played each other once allowing for the top two teams from each league to progress to the semi-finals.
Portree High School and Plockton High School both finished their respective groups unbeaten with newcomers Culloden Academy coming second to Portree and Ardnamurchan A just pipping Lochaber A on goal difference to take the last semi-final spot.
The semi-finals were played in unison, four minutes each way. The match between Plockton and Culloden was an extremely tight, end to end battle with the score remaining 0-0, meaning extra time and the ‘golden goal’ rule came into play. Culloden found that crucial goal four minutes into extra time following some nice passing play on the left wing and a goalmouth scramble to put the ball past the Plockton ’keeper.