CompassSport Trophy
Balnagowan 15th March
A small ELO contingent of seven members made the long trek to Aboyne on Deeside for the Scottish round of the CompassSport Cup and Trophy hosted by Mar OC. These are inter-club competitions – the Cup is for larger clubs and the Trophy for smaller ones. The definition of ‘small’ is quite elastic though as it allows Interlopers (INT) and Forth Valley (FVO) to compete in the Trophy. This year FVO made the bold move of opting to compete against the big clubs and were rewarded for their daring by winning the Cup. The Trophy was narrowly won by hosts MAROC over INT.
The stand-out runs for ELO were by Robin and Sheila Strain on Men’s Green and Short Green respectively. Trina Rogerson and Ian Rowland also put in solid runs which scored well for the club. The terrain was typical for Deeside – mixed woodland which is a delight to look at but frustrating to run through with accumulated brashings and plenty of windblow to confuse one’s bearings. Saartje Drijver was making her first attempt at a TD5 (ie hardest technical difficulty) course and wasn’t the only competitor who found it all too challenging . Overall our result was a disappointing 9th place with just five counting runners. On a brighter note ELO did beat a couple of clubs who had no representatives scoring points!
Next year this competition will be hosted by FVO in the Stirling area on 13th March. Let’s hope that ELO can field a bigger team in 2016 with scoring runners on all available courses.