BUTTERFLIES BEFORE THE GAME

As this blog develops, I find myself going on and on about the weather.
But it plays such an important role in Scottish outdoor sport - particularly amateur sport.

It looks like a cracker of a day for today's matches.


But for a coach or manager, no matter how well you plan or prepare your side for the following weekend's game - you are at the mercy of the weather as to whether the planned game takes place.

If you are an administrator, fixture scheduling in Scotland is nigh on impossible. Doesn't stop clubs, players and commentators moaning when ties are switched and match venue decisions don't go their way, mind you.

Shinty supporters are left frustrated when the regular blank Saturdays leave them with having to find something else to fill their Saturdays. Decorating, gardening, working...or even...going shopping with the wife.

Shopping.  With the wife.  On a Saturday.  In the rain.
If I could paraphrase from a Disney animation DVD that I was recently forced to watch: Darn you, Scottish rain, sleet and snow - darn you all to heck.

But for the players, weather cancellations just leave you deflated. After a few pints on a Saturday following a game, you get Sunday out the way then, by Monday, your thoughts turn to Saturday's next game.
That slight butterfly in the guts feeling and you can't wait for the game to start and to get stuck in for your club, village - but most of all because it is something tremendous to play shinty.
Then, by Tuesday, the forecast is predicting a chance of rain by Friday. You look at the grey cloud outside. By Thursday - not Friday - it's chucking it down.
Still you hope that it will dry up and the pitch will get a chance to be playable.
It does, for two hours on Friday morning but just long enough to get your hopes up.
Still doubt about the game, but you wake up on Saturday with faint hope in your heart.
Then you open the curtains to a wall of sleet. No hope now.

So what do you do with your Saturday with no shinty game to play? It's a kind of empty feeling, and it's a day you are not used to having.

By Monday, the butterflies make another appearance...