Skye Camanachd

Skye Camanachd is one of the most illustrious names in the long, ancient history of shinty - long before the establishment of the club, the men of the different parishes of Skye would congregate for games with hundreds on either side, then when the rules of the game were set down in the Victorian era and the club was formally established, Skye won the first MacTavish Cup in the 1890s. Shinty has survived in Skye through emigration, World Wars and a turbulent 1960s which almost saw the club fold but 1990 saw a golden moment when the team finally lifted the Camanachd Cup, the World Series, Stanley Cup and Superbowl of Shinty all rolled into one on a glorious sunny day against the then giants of the sport, Newtonmore. Skye have never won the Camanachd Cup again since then, but like the Gaelic language and culture which is so important to the players of the club, there are strong green shoots of recovery appearing. The young Skye team won the Balliemore Cup, the sport's intermediate title in 2008 and are in the second year of a ten year project to climb back to the top of the shinty mountain. A tough task, but Skye is home to some truly stunning mountains so "Na Sgitheanaich" have had plenty of practice in climbing daunting peaks. Skye will be performing at the games in part due to the support of local entrepreneur, Campbell Grant, who is adopting a unique approach to taking his company Sitekit international. As Managing Director of Isle of Skye based software company Sitekit, he is supporting his local club's historic visit to the United States as a way to expand both the commercial and research arms of his business and to make new business contacts. "Entering a new market is always hard, but selling software in California, the home of IT is a bit like taking coals to Newcastle. So, you need introductions and interesting edge, which I am sure this trip will provide in spades." "This is a unique opportunity to combine support for the local shinty team, which is so important to the community, with a unique marketing campaign in the most competitive and important IT market in the world." Campbell is determined that his company follows in the innovative tradition of Scots and sees Sitekit as a small but highly ambitious company with international aspirations. The company has had a string of awards and successes with customers benefitting from its innovative software application Sitekit CMS for managing large multiuser, multilingual web sites. With a particular focus on the healthcare market, Campbell is looking for new business partners in California. "Sitekit already provides products and services for well known US brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Tyco and ATD for their European subsidiaries and we'd like to expand on this." The Skye Camanachd squad has been based at Stanford University during their stay, and Campbell is keen to make this count; "Our R&D division, Sitekit Labs has PhD research links in e-health with Harvard University and MIT, so to establish research links with Stanford, in the heart of Silicon Valley, will be a massive boost to our R&D programme. Using the web more extensively for medical diagnosis and health care is the future and Sitekit aims to be a major player in this emerging global market. The "Sgitheanaich" are here to visit their sporting colleagues at the Northern California Camanachd club. The first shinty club to be set up in North America, the inspiration was a visit by their founder, Michael Bentley to Skye in the 1980s. Over the next decade he worked towards a dream of starting his own American shinty club but in those pre-internet days it was hard business staying in touch with Scotland - but by the turn of the millennium he had garnered enough interest to start the club in San Jose and San Francisco with sticks and balls sent over from Scotland - now almost 10 years on the club has dozens of players from both genders, of all ages and sizes, run their own league, other clubs have started in Washington and Texas and they have visited Scotland on three occasions- the last time visiting Skye when an open invitation was laid out to Skye Camanachd which they have now taken. This is the first time a Scottish club has visited the United States and although Skye Camanachd visited Canada in the afterglow of the Camanachd Cup win, this trip is unique as it will be the first visit to a true "shinty playing community" albeit one many miles from home. "The Highland Games will market shinty to a massive audience, but it's also opportunity to market Skye and the Highlands of Scotland as a destination and as a business location. While at Stanford, we are hosting a seminar on Skye - featuring its traditional Gaelic culture and music, and its traditional and modern businesses, from fishing to software design. Members of the shinty team will all contribute their expertise which includes fishermen, builders, surveyors, engineers and software designers, some of whom also perform as accordionists, singers and pipers in their spare time. Campbell himself was a keen shinty player in his youth and may be picking up his caman at the Highland Games, although he's not quite sure yet - "My son Stewart is travelling with the squad, so I might just leave the playing up to him as we haven't developed a health care program which has helped cure old age yet!" After months of planning, the departure day is finally upon us.