Merry Xmas and Happy New Year

Hostilities recommence on Thrs 8th January 2026 

 

Thirds at 50%

 At the halfway mark in the Thirds Competition, Team Wyllie has the whip hand with two wins out of two.  The Hicks team is in close attendance, one game and also one end behind and ready to pounce on any slip ups.  Meanwhile The Mackey squad is languishing and it is starting to look like Julia may end up the season 'pie-less'.   Still everything to play for though.

Xmas Bonspiel

Validation from Curl Edinburgh

Another Year, another excuse to embarrass yourself at the annual bonspiel. 

This year featured no less than 3 dragons and 2 unicorns (of undecided gender - wait, do unicorns have a gender?) and other amorphous 'Animals - keeping it weird' taking to the ice.  With no totally new tasks to perform, the whole circus seemed to run fairly smoothly, apart from Mikes 'wild' shot nearly taking out 2 young Crabbie Trophy (schools) finalists, playing on the next sheet. Our own two youngsters, Ali Breeze and Finlay Richardson  were unperturbed by the cruel and unusual ends that they were asked to play and took them in their stride, leaving their mothers having to scramble for a copy of the 'rules' to make head or tails (of which there were at least eight) of the unfolding chaos below.  To be fair, Ali and Finlay already thought that most of us (well me anyway) were fairly mad.

Congratulations to Mike Wood, Graeme Maguire and Ali Breeze, who ran out clear winners ahead of Dale, Gavin and Finlay in second place.  Julia's honking pig, ensured that her team were in last spot. 

Province Pairs

Commiserations to David Wyllie and Graeme Maguire on their results in the Province Pairs.

It was heard said that they never really recovered from a 'Lucky Shot' in the first end of the first game.  Despite not playing badly (in my opinion) they kept the overworked scorers lives easy by failing to score a single shot or end in either of their two games.  It should (perhaps?) be noted that their qualifying games were against the eventual winners of both the High and Low Roads. 

Indoor Grand Match 2025

Aberlady v the World (but only the part of it that comprises North Scotland)

The Aberlady Team of Mike Wood, John Good, Dale Callander and David Wyllie set off to Lockerbie to take on Bridge of Allan as part of the South of Scotland Team.  After a good afternoons curling and socialising they came away with an 8 - 5 win 

 East Lothian Province Clubs sent 8 teams to Ice Rinks in Lockerbie, Greenock, Kinross, Forfar and Edinburgh to compete in the 2025 Indoor Grand Match, representing the South of Scotland.  Everyone involved had an enjoyable and mostly successful day of curling and socialising.

The various Clubs scores were:

East Linton 1          8 - 3  Verses Kippen

East Linton 2          5 - 7 v Broomhall 

Yester                      6 - 4  v Broomhall 2

Markle                    9 - 5 v Forfar Young Curlers

Athelstaneford 1    7 - 7 v Clunie

Athelstaneford 2     7 - 6 v Forfar 2

Aberlady                 8 - 5 v Bridge of Allan

Haddington            20 - 3 v Oban 

That is a total of six wins and one peel and one loss.   The South were overall winners with a margin of 69 shots up.  East Lothian Province Teams provided almost 50% of that winning margin, with a cumulative score of 34.

 

Finally Congratulations go to the Haddington team, including Graeme for managing to steal an 8 in their fourth end against the Oban team in Greenock ! 

 

An 8 Ender is achieved !

 

 

Trophy Winners

 Congratulations were due to two teams last night.

Well done to Daniel Peart, David Wyllie, Simon Rice, Rosie Clark, Sheena Munro and last night Tim Pooley.  They have captured the Trophy with with one game in hand.

 Meanwhile, on the other sheet, Team Wood/Maguire secured their first win against a very able New Stones Team, who have all agreed to sign up as reserve players. 

An Aberlady Record ?

The opening game of regular season saw 'probably' a new low for the club in its 165 year history !

It was the lowest average age of any game certainly in my memory, and Adam and Julia were not the reason!  Of the eight players on the ice were our three new U17 reserves who in their second outing seem to have the line and length of our main players.

Anyway the game itself was, after two ends, with a score of 7 - 0 against,  looking like it was going to be a long night for the Maguire squad.  It was however a game of two halves and helped with a 4 of their own in the sixth end, and a yell of "Game On" from their skip they entered the final end only 2 shots down.  The final end saw them with several stones distributed round the twelve foot.  The two teams then took it in turns to remove the stone nearest the button.  With the final shot of the match Team Mackey misjudged the swing of the ice  and left a two to peel the match 8 - 8.  It was a good game with several classy, and in my case occasionally lucky shots, that seemed to be enjoyed all round.  The injection of youth into our games seems to be bringing out the best of our 'older' members.