Christmas Greetings

Merry Christmas and Good Curling for 2014

 

 

Christmas Greetings

With the Christmas break now upon us, Andy McDiarmid has a handy lead in the Wingate, although he is still catchable.  His tactics appear to be to get reserves to turn up for him and then to pick the best team from his own personal squad at the ice rink !
We wish Dave Munro and John Good (Team Chesterhall) all the best in the Province Pairs competition on Sunday 12th January.
The next fixture for the club is the Old v Young Challenge on MONDAY 13th January 2014, where the Oldies will be out for revenge after last years defeat.

Rennie @ 66%

After the second round has been completed, our President Simon Kesley regains a small lead in the standings.  All is still to be played for though with ALL the teams separated by a single win.
Resumption of hostilities on the 16th of January should be interesting.

December News - Update

December has been a month of good news and bad news. 
Firstly, the bad.  The first round of the East Lothian Knockout, lived up to its name and after a tight match, we were knowcked out !
Secondly, Congratulations to our members Simon and Graeme who helped East Lothian Province retain the trophy in the annual Chanty Challenge against the Borders (all this despite actually losing their game)

Black Bull 2013

Callum, Alex, Tom, Morgan and Robin

Congratulations to Morgan Nicoll, Andy Aberdein and Colin Baird who helped East Lothian Province win the Black Bull Trophy at this years Area 5 Bonspiel.

This Bonspiel brings together Midlothian, Peeblesshire and East Lothian under the Area 5 banner. Each Province fields two teams, as does the Royal Club which this year included Willie Nichol, Chairman of the Board of the RCCC and David Henderson, Vice President.

East Lothian showed their class by coming out 10 shots up. with the next highest being the Royal Club with 3, Peebles with 2 and Midlothian a bit further back.
The programme for this Bonspiel combines good curling and social time. Club players, recent Tour players, former Internationalists and senior Office Bearers alike played and made the most of the opportunity, and East Lothian is to be congratulated in having proved again that it has plenty of curling talent

Substitutes / Reserves - Club Rules

Following a recent discussion I would remind skips that when a regular member of their team has been replaced by any other player that "A substitute may be placed in any position at the skip's discretion BUT not higher than the person who he/she is replacing"

December News

Firstly, apologies for the slow updates on the last two matches.  My computer has been buried !

Wingate Supper night, there is a supper at the ice rink following our Wingate game on Wednesday 4th December.
Area5 Bonspiel - Andy Aberdein will represent the club/province in the annual bonspiel on Friday 6th December from 12.30.  Colin Baird is first reserve.
East Lothian Province Knock-out gets underway on Saturday 14th December.

Points Results 2013

Congratulations to the amazing Nicolls, this time Morgan and Lindsey.  They took the points competition in some style although Andy A kept Morgan on his toes by taking an early lead and eventually a magnificent second place.
Last years scores are in red.

Points Competition 2013

Points Competition, Wednesday 20 Nov 2013 at 5.30pm

Our annual Points Competition is open to all Members and Reserves

For those unfamiliar with a Points Competition, it is a solo competition, so no fear of letting anyone (other than yourself) down.

It consists of a series of exercises (take outs, draws, tap ups etc. ) with 4 attempts at each type of shot.

Most importantly it is a fun competition which allows you to practice shots that you may not have had the chance, or been asked to play before.  You will also play about twice as many stones as you would in a normal club match.

The benefits:-

• Its Fun
• Its good practice.
• (If you ask the skips they will try and give you pointers and help)
• It is for all standards, from beginners to experts.
• It allows you to measure your progress (against yourself or others)
• It show your skips how good you are !
• It allows you to witness gamesmanship between the skips.

The cost of the game is £10 per head.

Come along and try it out.

Rennie update

With the second round of games now under way, the Rennie Quaich could go to the wire.  All teams now having recorded two wins and two losses so far, only two ends separate all four teams.

Swan Trophy 2013

After the drama of the last two weeks finding replacements for half of our 8 man (& woman) team, due to injury, holiday, work commitments and 'shooting', we finally had a team to replay last years final.  Only this time it was in the first round.  It is always going to be a difficult game taking on Corstorphine which includes all of Murrayfields 'ice-men' and this proved to be true once again, especially when three of our team consisted of our juniors, namely Sandy, Karen and Hamish.

Tight games they proved to be and the match was always going to come down to one club having one poor end, but I am getting ahead of myself.......  After five ends Haddington held a narrow one shot advantage with one game up at three shots to two and the other game ties at two shots all.  This was where the stutter occurred and being slightly heavy on his two draws a big six ender was indeed conceded.  In such a tight match recovering from this blow was always going to be impossible. 

If that end was removed from the score cards they would record two peeled games, instead of just the one peel and one loss.  Not withstanding a loss by six shots, all six players, including Colin B, John and Graeme) and the two skips, Willie and James P played extremely well and our juniors, Sandy, Karen and Hamish performed magnificently.  This may be recorded as a loss but it was a much closer game than we recorded against Corstorphine in last years final.

Now, I don't want to hear any more complaints from club members about their stones having 'lost their handle'

Edinburgh International 2013

Once again Murrayfield is about to be overtaken with high class international curlers.  This gives us all an opportunity to see how others cope with our ice.  Spectating is free so do try and get along to see some of the action.
I have placed a link (top right) to their website and there will be live webcasts of selected games, with the cameras often being manned by Haddington players, so you have no excuses.

East Lothian Province Competitions

The draw for the East Lothian Competitions has now been held and the full draw can be seen on our 'Fixtures' Page.
Our overall Fixture List has also been amended with these details.
Our opponents are as follows:-
East Lothian Knockout - Sat 14th December at 6pm
East Linton
East Lothian Pairs - All HCC Games on Sun 12th January from 9.30am
Athelstaneford
East Lothian Bonspiel - Fri 24th January from 12.30pm
Aberlady & Yester 2
Good luck to all our teams.

Skins 2013

Congratulation to Colin Baird, who is the first to appear on Haddington's 'Roll of Honour' for 2013/14, having won the 'Champions of Champions' Skins title.
It would only be fair to mention that Colin and his team of Graeme, Graham and Trish/Pat were comprehensively outplayed by James Pate (standing in for Andy McDiarmid), Simon, John and Stephen.  Due to the vagaries of the scoring system, which only appears to be understood by Graeme (who is quite often on the winning side !) Colin came out of the game the winner by 10 skins to 4.  Had this been a normal game James would have been the victor by 6 shots to 4.

The game started off with James taking the first end skin by four shots then stealing a single to take the second end skin.  Colin made use of the hammer to take the third end (worth 2 skins) to tie the game at 2 skins each.  No skins were won on the fourth, or fifth end leaving a total of 8 skins riding on the sixth end.  With the two skips facing a draw to the button, Colin managed the one shot steal necessary to collect the available pot and with only 4 skins available on the seventh end, hands were shaken and the players retired to the bar.

Rennie - on a knife edge

With two games played all the teams are now on one win and one loss, making ends and shots all important.

RCCC Rink Champs - Rnd 1

This is a summary of the events as they unfolded

You asked for a summary of the rink championship game against Stray Dogs (skipped by Kerry Barr) today, I’ll make it brief if you like – we lost!

To do the game justice though it was a very close game all the way and we were generally controlling the game most of the way. With an empty house in 1st end with hammer I made the choice to take the shot – it took the granny off! We played the following 2 ends very smoothly and following a blank 2nd, forced Kerry to hit and stick for a 1 in 3rd. We played a risky end in 4th and thanks to a pick-up on Kerry’s last stone which was meant to be a guard, I managed a double take-out to lie 2. We swapped singles over next 2 ends meaning we were going down last end 2 shots up. With my last stone I had a hit and stick to force Kerry to do the same to lead us into an extra end but my stone didn’t quite draw enough and rolled agonisingly to the edge of the 8 foot to leave them lying 1 and Kerry just had to draw 8 foot to get her 2. Considering she had already drawn the button to out count one of our stones which was touching the button 2 ends earlier it came as no surprise that she managed it easily. 
So to the extra end................. we played it more poorly than the previous 7 ends but after Kerry had played her last stone all I needed to do was do as Kerry had done on previous end and draw the 8 foot for the game............I came out at correct speed but gave it ever such a slight extra push and on the keen ice there was no stopping it! All the team of Andy Aberdein, Sandy Nicoll and James Pate could do was watch it trundle through to the back of the house leaving Stray Dogs the winning 2 shots and giving me a serious bout of curling type depression!

We gave our best and certainly played as well as, if not outplayed, the opposition for most of the game - all it came down to was one skip who could draw the button and the other who couldn’t hit the 8 foot!

Cheers Dave

It sounds like we gave them a very good game that was probably a lot closer than they expected.  It's just a shame that we kept our worst for last - and No, I don't mean Dave

Opening Bonspiel

To keep people guessing, our second game of the season was The Opening Bonspiel.
It was great to see so many faces out on the ice again.  Both games were played in good, if not high, spirits with a lot of banter and sledging going on, especially between Messrs Maguire and Kerr.  The atmosphere was just as it should be and many players being baffled as to what to do when asked to play in unfamiliar positions.  I think most folk enjoyed their turn as skip and it probably gave the regular skips a bit of a shock to be playing as lead.
In the Kesley v Aberdein match, Pat and Colin Hood were all out to make their marks before jetting off for the rest of the season.  Pat, as skip, played 2 perfect draws to the button while Colin had his weight perfected all night.
There were also notable shots in the Baird v L(orna) Nicoll game from all players.  It was reported that Stephen had played a 'fine game'
The overall scores mattered, not a jot, as everyone left the ice and headed for supper, where the gossip continued and our two proud new fathers, Willie and Andy, got to brag.
Now back to the serious stuff.........

October News Updates

NEW MEMBER
A big hello to our new reserve member Dave Wyllie.
Dave came to both Aberlady's and Haddington's Come & Trys and has subsequently had a couple of lessons and joined the 'New Stones' at Murrayfield.  He has now decided to join both clubs as a reserve member.
His contact numbers have been sent out by text and email.

PRESIDENT'S DRINKS
A big thank you to Simon and Susan for hosting a very successful event.  We had a very good turn out but still didn't manage to empty his cellar.  Although the empty Bombay Sapphire bottle was noticed and the odd sore head reported.  Now its down to the curling.

OPENING BONSPIEL
The opening bonspiel is on Thursday 17-10-13 at 5.30 and is followed by supper at the rink.

WINGATE ROSEBOWL
The first Rosebowl action is on Friday 18-10-13 at 7.30.

RCCC RINK CHAMPIONSHIPS
Good luck to Dave Munro, James Pate, Sandy Nicoll and Karen Munro, who will take on 'The Stray Dogs' in the first of our 'external' competitions of the season on Sunday 20-10-13 at 1.45pm

Rennie Away

Our season got off to a good start last night.  It was great to see other members after the long and hot summer break. 
Greetings completed, it was time to get down to action.
In game one Willie had obviously decided that his collection of wooden spoons was already too large and quickly built up a 4-0 lead after three ends.  His run was stopped there with a determined come back from Dave taking the next three ends to square the game at 4-4.  Willie survived a tense final end taking a single and the game 4-3.
In game two things were quite different with James P taking a decisive lead winning the first five ends.  Simon, facing a 'granny' came out fighting and in end six had a shot for a 4.  The shot was very slightly off but securing a 3, 'granny' was waved away on the bus.  The final end saw James Pate regaining control and running out the winner.

Hope to see as many people as possible at the President's Drinks on Friday 11th October 2013

The Rennie Trophy

As I write this, it is now less than 48 hours until the opening game in Haddington's season.
I hope everyone is fit ?

Come and Try

A big thanks to John and Dave for supplying the coaching services for the come & try while Graeme languished in bed with the Manflu.
It was reported that all 5 newcomers had an enjoyable time and showed some potential.
It is essential that we follow up on this and try and get even more new comers to come along to our January Come & Try Session.

Come & Try Curling 2013

If you are interested, or know of anyone who might be interested, whether they are young, old, friends, neighbours, previous curlers or complete beginners, please contact Graeme.

The New Season is coming

The new 'membership pack' should be issued shortly but if you cannot wait to find out which rinks you will be playing in next year, along with a complete list of fixtures and dates, have a look at the 'Fixture list' tab.

News Update

Apologies for the late cancellation of the bowling night. As we had to delay the event until the school holidays, numbers were always fairly tight.  Following late cancellations we felt that the event should be cancelled.

The draw for the RCCC Rink Championship has been posted on the Fixtures page.

HCC - By Royal Appointment

And so on a  (very) wet Tuesday afternoon, no less than seven members of Haddington Curling Club, and a couple of others, set off to the Royal Garden Party.
Didn't they scrub up well.

Bowling Night is Back

Season 2013 -2014

Dear All

Our new President Simon Kesley and Vice-President John Good send their summer greetings.

Just to let you know that preparations for Season 2013 - 2014 are well underway.
The ice has been booked and we are trying to finalise our playing roster in order that rinks can be selected.  If you have not yet returned your 'Playing Status Form' to Graeme, please do this as soon as possible.

An evening game of bowling has been arranged and notifications will be issued shortly.

The website will be updated in preparation of the new season.  In particular provisional fixture dates and dates for 'outside competitions' will be posted within the next few days.

Please note that we have a 'Come & Try' booked for Sunday 29th September so if you knwo anyone that wants, or could be persuaded, to try curling please let me know.

Dinner 2012 / 13 - the photos

Finally I have got round to uploading our photographs to our Flickr Photostream  Here are a couple but for the rest, you will have to click on the link.

Wingate Winner

Congratulations to Andy McDiarmid and his team of Simon Kesley, John Good and Drew Bain who clung on to victory. 
The championship went down to the last stone with James Logan narrowly failing to make a very wide angled promotion, resulting in a peeled game against James Pate.  This allowed Andy McDiarmid to secure the championship and get his name on the trophy for the first time.

District Medal

Another year and another district medal slips through our fingers.
On Friday our team of J Logan, G Maguire, J Good and C Baird met Abercorn Curling Club for this years district medal match. 
We took the first end with the most outrageous fluke shot but, apart from that, it took us four ends to get started.  During the first few ends, no barn doors were threatened.  The loss of a five in the fourth end proved to be a small turning point and with the score at eight to one we mounted a rally, taking a single in the fifth. Having got the score board kick started, we stole a two in the sixth and a three in the seventh.  (We can only speculate what might have happened in the eighth) 
The final score line of eight to seven against, but having won four of the seven ends definately flattered the performance.
Congratulations to Abercorn who were the better team on the night.

Dinner and Prizes

HADDINGTON DINNER

FRIDAY 1ST MARCH 2013 @ 7.30PM

OPEN ARMS DIRLETON.

Please see below a letter from our President, Shelagh, inviting you all to our Dinner and Prize-giving.

Please, please reply by email, phone or text as soon as possible.

(Even if you cannot come, a reply would be helpful)

It should be a great night with good food, good company, our usual raffle and an entertaining speaker.

Regards
Graeme Maguire
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For:-
Haddington Curling Club
8 Amisfield Park, Haddington, EH41 4QE
tel 07990 545 792 (m)

 

Wingate - Penultimate Games

Last night saw what should have been the final conclusion of our top league but one game remains due to altered fixtures earlier in the season.
Andy won his game to remain clear at the top of the table but left last years champion contemplating demotion and next years campaign in the Rennie.  Meanwhile, James L battled to make up the three shot penalty for being a player short to beat Morgan by a single shot and leave himself in second place, with one game to go.
The final game on Monday, at 7.30pm), between James L and James P will decide this years champion.  
James L is two championship points behind Andy (who has completed all his games) and has already won more ends than Andy.  A win on Monday night will secure the trophy for James Logan, anything less will see Andy McDiarmid hang on and take overall victory.

President Reclaims the Cup

Shelagh Main regained the President Cup in the final year of her reign.
Despite Vice President Simon being delayed in Birmingham his rink, skipped by James Logan, beat the President by seven shots to four, however the President chose her depute, James Pate, wisely as he proceeded to beat Willie Kerr's rink by a margin of seven shots to two.  The aggregate result saw Shelagh winning the cup by an overall seven shots to nine.
A very pleasant and convivial supper was held afterwards and Shelagh made a short thank you speech emphasising how good  it was to have had George Playfair back on the ice again.

Rennie Champion (again)

Congratulations (again) to Colin Baird for winning the Rennie Championship (no, really this time).
Further to my previous premature post a tight final round of games were completed with no less than three of the four teams still in with a mathematical chance of winning. 
In a close game, with Willie fighting back from a seven - nil scoreline after the first two ends, Colin closed out the game eight - seven winners to secure the trophy with a clear number of wins.
The other game was equally fought over with Simon running out the winner therefore ensuring that our two new skips took the top two positions in the table.

Pairs 2013

Sixteen members responded to President Shelagh's call, and there was a particularly good show from five of our younger players, all of whom reached one or other Final.

First Round

Shelagh Main and Steve Dyer beat Simon Kesley and Graham Elder

Andy Aberdein and John Good beat Hamish Logan and Lorna Nicoll

Karen Munro and Douglas Pate beat James Pate and Lisa Starrs

Roy Black and Richard Taylor beat Andrew Kinnaird and Sandy Nicoll

 

High Road Semi-finals

Andy and John beat Shelagh and Steve

Karen and Douglas beat Roy and Richard

Low Road Semi-finals

Hamish and Lorna beat Simon and Graham

Andrew and Sandy beat James and Lisa

 

Low Road Final

Hamish Logan and Lorna Nicoll, won with four shots to the three from Andrew Kinnaird and Sandy Nicoll.

High Road Final

Andy Aberdein and John Good won with four shots to the three from Karen Munro and Douglas Pate. Karen played her last stone with courage and accuracy through a narrow port, removing the opposition stone from the button only to see it take out one of her stones which she needed to take the end. Gasps and then sighs all round! John played first stones throughout, and was consistent. Andy was a good foil, playing a bit heavier and giving good ice throughout.

 

In a report like this it's hard do full justice to what was a well-fought contest that involved, among other highlights, a draw shot challenge for a place in the final. With each player having to make every one of their three stones count, concentration was intense, and the margins in both Finals could not have been closer.

Chatting afterwards, Andrew Kinnaird said he had reached the final of Haddington Club Pairs at least four times but still hadn't had a win. Well done for perseverance, Andrew, and better luck next season!

Website Updated

The results tables have now been updated to show the current standings.  It would appear that my announcement of Colin as the Rennie Champion may have been premature, although he does still hold the whip hand going in to the final round.
The results tab has now also been returned to its proper place.

Rennie results

Please excuse the lateness of these results. The Wi-fi on the bus is intermittent.
I am also having problems posting tables. So here are the latest score cards, make the rest up yourself, sorry.

The Rennie Champion 12-13

Congratulations to Colin Baird who has won the Rennie at his first attempt.
Aided, of course by Graeme, Andy McCrone and  Pat (and gill while I am holidaying in Canada).
There is still all to play for in the last round of games as all the remaining teams are tied on 6 points.

Graeme.

Apologies

I do not have access to a full computer therefore I will only be updating the Wingate and Rennie league tables and not the score matrix until the start of February..
Also due to circumstances beyond my control the results tab seems to have relocated itself to the right hand end of the tabs list.
Sorry.

Young v Old 2013

The Young guns came out of the starting blocks on great form winning a 4 at the first end.  The "old" (Elinor, Simon, Shelagh & Sheena were trying to play catch up for the rest of the game but couldn't find a way through.  Final score 7 -2,  Congratulations to Lorna, Sandy, Karen and Hamish who all played extremely well and a good evening was had by all.

Oh Canada

Full reports, blogs and live score updates can be found here
http://strathconacuptour2013.co.uk
Dave Munro has faced travel difficulties and has been snowed in in Nova Scotia and has not been able, yet to get to Newfoundland. This could be a deliberate ploy by the Canadians because his east section of the tour is recording the best scores.
Graeme and Morgan in the central tour are having a tough time and their section is only 9 shots up after approx 30 games. Morgan's team skipped by Lockhart Stewart are by far the best performers so far and are now being targeted by the local clubs who are pitting their best clubs against them.  Graeme's rink got off to a great start but has been pegged back but is never the less performing steadily and is about level, to date.

From our own correspondent

The boys have now launched the RCCC tartan and have arrived in Canada

Swan Trophy

Eight of our boys and girls (twelve, if you include our non-playing supporters, Colin B, Sandy, Hamish and Elinor) shook off their new year celebrations to take on the might of Currie & Balerno in the Swan Trophy semi-final on the fourth of January.  The conclusion resulted in a shock to both clubs.
James L, Andy McD, Graeme and John Good after a poor start played well to finish with only a one shot loss, meanwhile James P, Morgan, Shelagh and Andy A got off to a flyer and kept a commanding lead throughout.
The prize for this win was a brief rest then back on for the final against Corstorphine.
The final was an entirely different story with both teams getting off to a poor start with the combined score of 10 to 0 before James L got his weight and managed to shove granny on to the bus.  Unfortunately, this was not the start of a big come back with both teams recording a loss and hand shakes after six ends.
Reaching the final was still an achievement but still leaves us without a win in the Swan since 1964.
There is always next year !

New Year 2013

Happy New Year to everyone

 

It will certainly memorable for our three members who are heading off to Canada on 9th January as part of the Strathcona Cup Scottish Tour- we send Dave, Graeme and Morgan our best wishes for an enjoyable and successful tour. They may even meet up with one of our former members, Margaret on their jaunts.

You can catch up on the tour with official daily blog entries on the Strathcona Cup website.

Graeme will also be blogging on his own website 

 

January dates for your diaries:-

 

Friday 4th January-12.30 - Swan Trophy

 

Sunday 13th January - 9.30 & (hopefully) 11.30 East Lothian Pairs - good luck to James & James defending the trophy they won last year

 

Sunday 13th January - 3.45 - East Lothian Knock-out 

 

Sunday 13th January - 8pm - Young Vs Old match

 

Monday 14th January - 5.30 - Rennie game & supper

 

Thursday 17th January - 5.30 - Wingate game

 

Friday 18th January - 12.30 - East Lothian Bonspiel

 

Thursday 24th January - 5.30 - Rennie game

 

Sunday 27th January - 3.45 & 6pm -Pairs Competition

Thursday 31st January - 5.30 - Wingate game

These can also be found on the Fixtures Tab above.

Graeme & Shelagh will try to keep the website up to date over the next month as technology allows.

Will skips please email scores or any information for inclusion on the website to 
graemeDOTmaguire1ATgmailDOTcom