Swan Trophy - Five Times in a Row!

The Swan Trophy is one of the most prestigious competitions in the Edinburgh Curling Club calendar and dates back to the opening of the Haymarket Ice Rink in 1922. Until very recently, it had only had one sponsor, Swans the auctioneers. Now, ECC itself runs and sponsors the competition. It is unique in that it is a double rink competition. Each club has eight players split into two rinks. Two games are played and the combined scores are totalled. The club with the highest total score wins the competition. Players obviously have to concentrate on their own game, but they need to have an eye on the progress of their clubmates in the other game as well. All very entertaining! So, what happened in the final against Oxenfoord? Brian Fleming, Dave Munro, Maggie Barry and Robin Copland (substituting for Betty Gibb) got off to a good start against rival skip Trevor Dodds and were 4-0 to the good after three ends. In the middle of the game, C&B rode their luck on a couple of occasions but some great stones from skip Brian saved the day. Perhaps the limiting of Oxenfoord to a single point in the penultimate sixth end turned the tide finally. A steal in the seventh end secured a 7-2 win. On the adjoining sheet, Susan Kesley, Andrew Galloway, Joe Barry and Margaret Nicol were involved in a titanic struggle against Callum Harvey's team. Two down coming home (remember that Brian and company were only four-up at this stage, so the competition result all hinged on the last ends), Susan and company engineered a score of two with a lovely four-foot draw from skip Susan. So - a draw and a five-shot win combined to secure the Swan trophy for a fifth time - excellent news!