Willie Johnston Trophy

14 March 2020

Three Ayr rinks took to the ice on Thursday 12th March for the annual game for men over the age of 50 against Lanarkshire for the Willie Johnston Trophy. President Robert played in what appeared, on paper at least, to be the strongest Ayr rink skipped by Jim Boswell with James Dykes at third and John Walker leading. They were up against Bob Parry, a long time organiser of the competition, who was supported by Arthur Devine, John Milne and Ian Crawford. Let’s just say it wasn’t a good day for the Ayr rink who found themselves 1-9 down after 5 ends and finished 4-10.

Hubert Ireland has played in this competition for something like 30 years and thought this might be his swan song so he had roped in old team mates Andy Eccles and John Macleod and with Andrew Kerr to bring down the average age of the team. Hubert started off not too badly and his rink was actually ahead at one stage before age caught up with them and they lost a two in the sixth and another two in the seventh to finish with the same score as Jim Boswell, 4-10 against John Seaton, Ken Hamilton, George McGraw and Robert Rollo from New Bothwell CC.

And so it was left to the third Ayr rink to put a bit of respectability on the day ! The third rink was skipped by Bobby Gault with Mark Meehan at three, Andy Dickie at two and Derek Murchie leading, up against some more well known faces in Bill Marshall (skip), Brian Cunningham, Alan Turner and Jack Blackwood. This turned out to be the tightest game of the three although Bobby was always in control and finished winning by 7-4.

After the game the company stayed on for a meal, some storytelling and some good craic.

With two Lanarkshire rinks matching each other on points, ends, shots up and total shots the Willie Johnston Trophy went to (l to r) Robert Rollo, Ken Hamilton, John Seaton and George McGraw on the toss of a coin.

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