"I would do it all again if I got the chance" – Caberfeidh legend Stewart Maclennan reminisces about his playing days and outlines challenges of running a shinty club in 2023
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For over 50 years, shinty has been Stewart Maclennan's life.
As soon as he could walk, Maclennan was swinging a caman, and he would progress through school shinty into Caberfeidh's first team at just 16 years old.
Coming into an ageing team, his breakthrough into the senior game could have been several degrees easier, but he persevered and would go on to lift multiple trophies at Castle Leod over the ensuing decades.
Maclennan has shown an impressive dedication to the sport – even picking his day jobs around having the opportunity to play shinty. On rare occasions, though, those two worlds would collide.
"When I went into the team first, the club had held on to the older guys who were a great team at one time, but had gotten too old," Maclennan said.
"We managed to rebuild it. Some of the older guys trained us up, and that's the way it moved forward.
"Until I was about 18 or 19, we used to get some awful hammerings, but when the team came together we won the Strathdearn Cup in my early 20s, beating Lochcarron 5-2 at Bught Park.
"The celebrations went on for days. We had a big dance on the Saturday night when we won it in the Heights of Achterneed, and it went on to the Sunday.
"I worked for a small joiners' company at the other end of the Heights, and he sent me over to replace two windows in the hall on the Monday. Lo and behold, four or five of the boys had booked the Monday off, and they showed up and we all carried on.
"I fell asleep, and when I woke up the boys that were there had fitted the window – but it was upside down! I told the boss what had happened on the Tuesday morning, and he just laughed.
"I had to go back over and sort it all out, but that was the first cup I had ever won with Cabers. We had some great times back then, and we had a very good team.
"We won Division Two twice in the 80s, then into the 90s, when we had another very good team. We won the Balliemore Cup four years on the trot, then we missed a year and won it again, so it was five years out of six.
"It was just about dedication and fitness really. Back when I first started playing, it wasn't so much about fitness. Most of the teams had big, hefty guys who were all muscle and would just beat the living daylights out of each other, but there's none of that nowadays.
"It's more fitness now and passing, a bit more like football really. We have a very good team on the go just now who are doing very well too."
A changing sport
Even as Maclennan became one of the older players he had once replaced, he continued to find ways to stay involved in shinty.
At 42 years old, he entered management, going between the first and second teams – and for the next 15 years he never missed a match.
Naturally, in that time the game itself has changed. In some ways it has become more difficult to run a shinty club, but Maclennan believes that in others the sport is better off now.
"By the time I became manager, a lot of the rules had changed," he explained.
"It wasn't nearly so hard as it was when I first started playing. You couldn't go into a proper tackle, there would be fouls all the time, but it's that fast you rarely see a hard tackle nowadays.
"I think the game is actually better now than it was then, but they do get a lot of injuries now that we didn't get then. I don't know how.
"In the first 20 years I played, we didn't know what a pulled hamstring was! Recently in our second team we've had five or six players out with dislocated shoulders and knees, pulled muscles and all of that.
"I'm still on the committee, and when I first started playing the committee picked the team, but now it's all down to the managers.
"The committee meeting is all about organising the field for playing on, and money for buying equipment and stuff like that. It's nearly £70 or £80 for a shinty stick, and you can easily break two or three of them in a game.
"The transport nowadays is colossal as well. We need to go down to Glasgow and Kyles and Oban, and you're over £1000 for a bus to go down there.
"We have a charge now at the gate for supporters, but we never used to do that. It just used to be a collection.
"It's difficult to keep two teams going with the prices involved – you're talking up to around £20,000 to keep the club running for a year. Every penny is a prisoner."
Beyond belief
There are other aspects of shinty life that have changed – to the point Maclennan can tell a few stories that he believes would amaze youngsters making their way in the game now.
Between rules on the pitch, the culture around matches and even defying medical guidance, there is not much that Maclennan has not been involved in.
"A lot of the players nowadays wouldn't believe what went on 50 years ago," he said.
"I remember Ian Bartlett being out on the corner flag, he was in his 40s when I started playing, and the full back came out and broke the head off his club but Ian still dribbled the ball all the way with the top half of his club to score a goal.
"Young boys nowadays won't believe that happened, but I was playing in that game. You wouldn't get away with it, it would be a foul now because it was pretty dangerous.
"One time I had broken a bone in my wrist, then the next week we were playing Lochaber at Castle Leod and we were getting beat.
"Me and my father cut my plaster off, I got on and we beat them! Nobody would believe that, but it did actually happen. I wouldn't be allowed to do that now either I don't suppose.
"After one match in Skye, and there was a big chimney fire in the house. The fire brigade was there, and all of a sudden nobody could find me. They were hunting all over the place for me, and they eventually found me out in the shed sleeping.
"We beat Skye, and on the way home on the bus we had plenty of fun, so when I arrived home at the house there was a chimney fire and I was lying sleeping in the shed.
"There are heaps of stories, I play the pipes as well so there would be a lot of piping involved if we won big games. If it was a final or a semi final, I would always take them with me.
"I enjoyed my time playing shinty, and I would do it all again if I got the chance."
Looking to the future
The 65-year-old still keeps a keen eye on Caberfeidh's fortunes as a committee member, and he has no intention of stepping away from shinty completely any time soon.
Maclennan is hopeful of a successful season at Castle Leod in 2023, and he is confident the current group of players have the ability to write their own history.
"I'll be there for a while yet hopefully," Maclennan added.
"I'm not as involved now as I used to be but I help out if I can. Any jobs that are needing done on the field, I give them a hand.
"We're in good form just now. Our second team went down a league this year, but there are a lot of young players coming through so hopefully they will manage to win that league this year and go back up.
"The first team is the best we've had in quite a lot of years I would say. We're getting good turnouts at training, close to 30 every week, and we've got some really good players in the team as well. I've had a great journey, and hopefully for the future it's not looking too bad."
