Lanarkshire Ice Rink

By a Special Correspondent

Forty teams from all over Scotland – Fyvie in the north to Berwick on Tweed in the south - contested the 31st Farmers Trophy, the 12th to be sponsored by NFU Mutual. After a week of great camaraderie, great skill and, above all, great fun, the supporters who gathered to watch the finals were treated to two superb games.

The Low Road final was almost exclusively an all East Kilbride and Haremyres affair with Jim Strang up against his old adversary Willie Baird. Now Willie has, for years, been trying, without success, to win the High Road. This year Douglas Burt put paid to that idea, beating Willie in the section and sending him into the Low Road. Now he can’t understand why he didn’t try this tack many years ago! Jim, on the other hand lost all his section games a year ago prompting his lead (brother George) to say ‘Sorry my good man but although I’ve enjoyed the experience immensely I think I may try my luck with my own team next year’ or words to that effect! The game itself was nip and tuck all the way with Willie finally winning by 6 shots to 4.

The High Road produced one of the great finals. The other Jim Strang  from Darvel had some problems this year. His long term lead, Tam Neil was injured and the pressure of having two careers meant Jim could not play beyond Wednesday and his third player, Robbie Stevenson could not play before Thursday. The solution – Robert Anderson was drafted in and about as many subs were used as the Germans deployed in the North Atlantic during WW2!

In the other corner was Robert Clark skipping Tom Allan’s team. After winning in 2007 this team was humbled in the 2008 final by some old senior outfit. Clearly changes had to be made. Did he jump or was he pushed ? – we’ll never know but Archie Craig departed for Aberdeen and, with the younger and much fitter Joke Johnston at second, the team swept all before them to reach the final.

The two Roberts had played against each other in finals many times but this was to be the first in Hamilton. The first end started quietly enough until Anderson jammed a Clark winger on to a stone barely in play at the back of the house. Clark drew for 2. Anderson was quickly even, however, scoring 2 at the second and thereafter it was tight all the way.

Anderson held a slender advantage of one shot going into the last end but without last stone. With his first stone, a guard would have gone a long way to securing victory. Guarding is never easy on swinging ice and playing a foot tight doesn’t help! The shot was left open and Clark played a superb hit and roll.

With his second Anderson attempted to find cover but again left it in the clear. The take-out looked easy but Clark had other ideas – There was a gasp from the crowd when the stone left his hand. ‘ He’s on the guards’ they shouted and they would have been right had it not been for the tremendous example of  power sweeping from Rab’s new athletic front end of Jimmy Raeburn and Joke Johnston. He passed the guards with nothing to spare and the trophy was his for the second time.

For full competition results, click here.