As the club prepares to face Aberdeen University in an intriguing title clash this weekend at Shawbost, it feels a good time to look at the tightly linked history that exists between Aberdeen University Camanachd and shinty in the Isles of Lewis and Harris.
The original Aberdeen University Shinty Club can lay claim to being the first officially constituted club back in 1861. However, the club went into abeyance for several years but was revived in 1889 by the University’s Gaelic Society, and it was a Stornoway medical student, Peter M Fowlie (b.1868) who was appointed captain. Living at Laxdale Cottage, his father Gavin was manager at Manor Farm and his mother, Christina MacKay hailed from Rogart. Peter’s sister would also marry Stornoway Shinty Club chieftain Aeneas M. MacKenzie.
Peter was captain for the club’s first big away game when they lost 4-0 to the Highland Railway Locomotive Club in Inverness. He soon graduated and moved first to Morayshire where he married, then out to Singapore where he gained a prominent post in the colonial administration. (not before conspiring with Aeneas to get poor Gavin committed to Craig Dunain to stop him marrying a fallen older woman!). Peter would end up with a street and elementary school named after him in Singapore. He was a champion golfer (a mark of a good shinty player), and sadly lost one of his sons in the Great War. His other son Patrick emigrated to Canada. Peter retired first to London, then St Andrews where he died.
Peter was just the first of these Leòdhasach exports to shinty in the Granite City. The Reverend Alexander Murray (Alasdair Dhòmhnaill Dhòmhnaill) (b.1876-d.1950) of Callanish played for the club and then proceeded to have a career in both the UF Church and Church of Scotland in Lochcarron, Beauly and Stratherrick, all shinty hotbeds with good fishing, his two passions alongside golf.
Another UF minister who played for the Uni went as far as Princeton. This time it was a Rubhach, Dr Donald MacKenzie from Aird. (b.1882-d.1941) who studied Philosophy in Obar Dheathain. His obituary by his wife stated that “he excelled at shinty” in his obituary on his sudden death whilst employed as Professor of Divinity at Princeton Seminary, after a ministry in Craigdam, Oban, Tain and Aberdeen. His daughter would become a successful poet.
A few years later, another doctor came along who like Peter M Fowlie was a fine golfer, and this despite an injury suffered in the Great Wear. Roderick Martin “Roddie” Fraser (b.1899-1946) was son of William Fraser who was headteacher as Sandwickhill between 1880 and 1923. Roddie was injured whilst a signaller in the Seaforths, but was still a very keen shinty player whilst in Aberdeen in the early 1920s. His true passion was golf, and won the first Tupper Cup when the golf course was at Melbost. As you can see his life was quite short,e ven by the standards of the time, complications from surgery meaning he didn’t get to see the new golf course which was looking forward to in the Castle Grounds.
Roddie wasn’t the last player for Aberdeen from the Lews, although as the century progressed, those who played at varsity level, may or may not have had previous experience of the Leòdhasach form of the sport which tended towards shorter camans and one handed play in the schoolyard.
In fact, Roddie played alongside several other Leòdhasaich, many who were resuming their education after the great cataclysm of the age. For example John Macsween of 33 Garrabost Point was born in 1894, and had been a captain in the Cameron Highlanders. John would become headteacher of Bragar and Aird, as well as be the first principal of Lews Castle College and earn an OBE for forming the Lewis Home Guard, where he became Lieutenant Colonel. The Uni’s Alma Mater magazine in 1921 described MacSween “[he] is no novice at the game, as was shown by his play last season at centre-half. he has but one fault – weak with his left, but this is more compensated for by his strength in other departments.”
Alongside John was Malcolm MacAulay of 3 Breasclete (b.1895) who gained an MA in 1921 and a BSc in 1923 and went onto a career in banking in Japan and China for Sun Life of Canada. Alma MAter called him “One of the best individual players but inclined to hang on to the ball too long.”
Following on was John MacSween’ successor at Lews Castle, Kenneth Smith of Arnol (Coinneach Fhionnlaigh Toudaidh) (b.1904-1979). Kenneth was a famous Siarach footballer but he took up shinty at university “which he played with equal verve and the same ‘take no prisoners attitude'”,
A decade later, another young Lewisman would make his mark for Aberdeen University. After going to High School in Kingussie, Colin George Morrison of 21 Upper Barvas was snapped up by Aberdeen University. Colin George does not seem to have had much knowledge of shinty growing up, Barvas being the first area outwith Stornoway to have a football team that entered the league. His enduring memory of shinty at Kingussie was being struck by a ball hit by Spean Bridge’s Hector MacGregor while watching a game at the Dell.
Colin George became secretary of the Varsity and Alma Mater had fun with the penpics calling him “A kindly soul but easily led” and “From Barvas, near St Kilda. Loves on of the Glencoe hooligans when away from his landlady. “May” be heard singing “The Campbells are coming”. Finds Laurencekirk a blot on the landscape but yet much nearer than Paris and safer.” Whatever that means! Colin became a teacher in Dumfries where he passed away. Of note was that Colin George attended Kingussie HS at the same time as fellow Barvas man Reverend Norman Macdonald aka “Bumble” who actually played for Kingussie’s first team. Reverend Macdonald became a minister in Ardchattan by Oban, but went to St Andrew’s which did not have a team at the time.
Colin George was joined by at least two Hearachs. Norman Macdonald of Northton, Harris who became Church of Scotland minister in Ullapool, Dyke and Aberdeen, as well as a John MacLean, nicknamed Tito, who seems to have picked up shinty while at school in Inverness. There is no record of a John MacLean from Harris graduating however!
Post the second war, Murdo Campbell, one of the famous Campbell brothers from Scalpy (and whose brother Kenny would contribute so much to helping shinty in Lewis in the late 1990s) would become secretary of the Varsity Club before going on to be an important figure in administration of the sport at Glen Urquhart and the various ruling bodies.
In the 1950s, Malcolm Donald MacLeod of Balallan (b.1937-1996) was noted in the Gazette as passing all his Agricultural Course subjects and being a member of the Aberdeen first team.
With shinty now moribund in the isles (although Kenneth Smith would be at Lews Castle College when a crew of Lochcarron boys would represent the school and win the Harrow Cup in Strathpeffer), it seems like the flow of shinty players from the islands dried up. Perhaps there were keen players who took up the game between the 1950s and the 1990s and if you know of anyone from Lewis and Harris who played for Aberdeen during this time let us know. There is one link of course, which is that former manager John MacAskill was in goals when the Uni won the Sutherland Cup in the 1990s, along with his younger brother Rab outfield.
The historic links between Lewis and Harris and Aberdeen were revived in the 2000s. Firstly young Martin Graham from Barvas would play a few games for the Varsity (as well as getting snapped in photos of Aberdeen’s 2005 Sutherland Cup win, which starred a man of great Hearach stock, Doneil MacLeod.), but it was really Donald Lamont of Garrabost, who had picked up shinty with Neil Ferguson at Sandwick who would totally renew this bond.
Donald would become a long serving student captain, which was important at a time that shinty had moved from a winter to summer season, which meant that Aberdeen, unlike the three other traditional varsity sides (Glasgow, Edinburgh and in 1967, St Andrews) who had all pulled out of the relatively new summer leagues, were pulling on non-student players more and more.
Donald was a successful captain and played with Aberdeen Uni in the old North One, and was very unlucky to not sign off his uni career with a league medal, after losing a playoff versus Lochaber at Castle Leod in 2010. His experiences and knowledge however were vital in helping Camanachd Leòdhais enter the leagues in 2011, and of course Donald then went on to become the club’s record scorer and a long serving captain. Donald would also convince shinty’s latest Leòdhasach cameraman Alasdair “Pod” Maclean to play a couple of games in blue and white whilst matriculated at Aberdeen.
In subsequent years, other Dubh is Gorm players have played for Aberdeen. On leaving the club in 2016, Scott Murray showed that he could play at a higher level by going to the University side and winning North Two, then playing the following season in North One. It was a deserved award for the standout player of the first few seasons in the league. Scott had been living and working in Aberdeen for several years, so it made sense that he play for the Granite City side.
The vast distance for games has seen a couple of other players make the move at least temporarily, with Michael MacLeod and Daniel Harrison both making appearances for the Uni whilst resident on the East Coast, and Ciaran Murray is currently signed by the Uni. Movement the other way has seen current player-manager and soon to be all-time club topscorer Donnie MacRae playing for the University before coming home to Harris and playing a vital role in the club’s current success. Of course, old foe and Alba star, Graham Black from Uist has been a key player for Aberdeen over the last decade as well.
Aberdeen University have a historically good record against Lewis, and indeed the fixtures against them have had a major impact on the eventual income of the last three league seasons. Both sides have had positive starts to the season and so a great game is in prospect between these two sides with a long standing connection.
If you, or any one you know such as relatives from the islands who played for Aberdeen University please let us know via facebook or lewiscamanachd@hotmail.co.uk.
(Thanks to QueenCorgi1 on rootschat.com and Steven MacKenzie from Beauly Shinty Club (formerly Aberdeen University Camanachd for some of this information – photo sourced from mcnair.smugmug.com)