Lochcarron Camanachd: Brief History
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How it all Started
Shinty has been played in Lochcarron from early times, commemorated in both songs and poems from the 17th-18th century. By late 1700s, the Reverend Donald Sage commented on young men passing the manse to play shinty, two miles up the glen probably at Tullich. A shinty club existed in the 1860s whose honorary members included Sir Ivor Guest of Achnashellach. Lochcarron Camanachd itself was formally constituted in 1883 making it one of the oldest in the west Highlands.
Matches were originally played on fields on the local estates of Tullich, New Kelso and Attadale before moving to the the Battery Park, complete with club house, in 1983. With promotion of the club to the National First Division in 2001, the pitch was extended at a cost of £90,000 to the full length allowed under the national rules.
Our Successes
By the late 1920s the club was regularly winning cups in local and county competitions, culminating in the Strathdearn Cup in 1937 and 1939 and the Sir William Sutherland Cup in 1939. After the war, the club produced highly successful teams in the mid-fifties and again in the late sixties. The late seventies and early eighties were relatively lean periods, coinciding with the times of great economic and social change following the industrialisation of Loch Kishorn as a centre for oil and gas platform construction. By the time the construction yard closed in 1987, the club had been reduced to fielding one team and by the early 1990s, in order to rebuild, it sought to compete in the lowest of the league competitions.. This move, over two seasons, revitalised the club and started a series of successive league victories and promotion, culminating in winning National Division One Championship in 2002 and promotion to the Premier League. The club by that time had won Intermediate Championship Balliemore Cup in 1999 and in 2003 and were beaten finalists in the national MacAulay Cup competition of 2001. The club then held its own in the Premier League for five seasons taking on the best in Scotland and bringing the name Lochcarron, every week, to the national media. Success attracted greater interest from young players and in 2000 the club relaunched a second team having previously blooded its youngest players under the colours of Lochbroom. The second team won its league championship in 2004. Today the club fields two senior teams and up to three youth teams drawn from our Primary School and Plockton High School.
Star Players
The Club has produced players for the National teams against Ireland, beginning with Roddie MacLennan, Calum MacKenzie and Calum MacAskill in the 1970s, and continuing in the last nine seasons with Iain MacKenzie (four caps), Kenny Ross (nine caps), Angus MacKay, (three caps), Michael Cooper (two), Gregor Cushnie and Peter MacKenzie (one), with six more of the current players having gained under-17, under-18 or under-21 caps. In addition Fraser MacKenzie, our First Team manger has served for four seasons as Scotland Assistant Manger.
Off the Field Achievements
The Club has also achieved much off the field with an Investors In People award in 2001 and 2005, (the first entirely volunteer-based sports club in Scotland) Highland Sports Development Club of the Year in 2003 and runner up in 2005, the first shinty club to be recognised as a Community Amateur Sports Club by the Inland Revenue for Gift Aid relief. In summary we take some pride in the words of the President of the Camanachd Association, "Initiative, enthusiasm and energy abound in Lochcarron Camanachd which has contributed massively to the sport, nationally and internationally… and has played a significant and integral part in strengthening and sustaining the long-term future of the sport, in the way it is coached, managed and administered…"